Paradise Bound
by AkamaiMom
Summary: A mission to Paradise goes horribly wrong. Sam is now missing on an island with a secret danger, and her team must push themselves to the limit in order to bring her back home.
1. Out of the Torrent

_Out of the Torrent_

"Don't let go, Carter! Hang on—" O'Neill gritted his teeth and tried to get a better grip on her arm. "Don't swing so much—get a foothold!"

"I'm trying sir!" She had a tight grip on his forearm, one handed, her other arm struggling for balance in the onslaught of rushing water. She scrambled in the water for traction, but the smooth mud in the ravine just slid out from under her boots. The water soaking into her BDUs and pack only intensified the weight hanging off the Colonel's arm.

Jack lay face down on the bridge, his upper torso hanging off it. His left arm curled hard around a decorative post, his right arm wrenched downwards, his fingers digging into the forearm of his second in command. Her fingers were currently leaving bruises in his wrists. Not that he could feel it—his arm had long ago lost feeling in the cold rushing water. Only determination kept his grip.

His entire body was submerged, his shoulders providing an infrequent break for Carter; the only opportunity she had to breathe came when the deluge surged around him like a river around a rock and provided her with a pocket of air.

Her nostrils flared as she reached deep down for more strength. Her eyes wild, she searched his face for help—for salvation. She swung with her full weight off him, with no other support, and he could tell that she was tiring. He gripped her arm harder. "Hang on!"

She did—then tried to bring her other hand up to grasp his arm. She screamed—gutteral, intense—as she raised her other arm, fighting against wave after wave of water and pain. A branch skittered off his shoulder and she dodged to miss it—shifting her balance and sending her hand sliding further down his wrist.

She was slipping—slipping down this ravine—down with the flow of this water, and he couldn't do anything to stop it. He fought harder against the flood, scraping his boots on the smooth stone of the bridge, digging his inner toes into the rock. His knee popped, and he knew he'd torn something inside. He fought the urge to scream in pain, fought the urge to curse in frustration. He couldn't afford to expend the energy.

Frantic, he searched for help—any way to counteract the weight and brute force of the water—saw the pack on her back, knew she carried the generator in it, and a decent amount of naquadah.

"Lose the pack!" He had to shout to be heard above the torrent around him. He intensified his hold on her wrist as she tried to obey, struggling for the clasps that held the pack on her shoulders. She fought the closures, tried with fumbling, numb fingers to squeeze the release. She cried out in frustration, inhaling a mouthful of mud, then choked and coughed and vomited the water out, the silt trailing down her chin, only to be whisked away by another wave of water.

"Teal'c!" Jack screamed over his shoulder, "Teal'c! Daniel!" But he knew he wouldn't be heard. He could barely hear himself in the roar of the flow. He couldn't see the others anymore, either, only water and debris driving around him, gushing downwards into the ravine that had, just an hour before, been completely dry and safe.

"Sir!" Carter shifted, losing some traction on his arm. She'd given up on the closure and was trying for her knife, but he knew that she wouldn't be able to get it—her legs had long ago been swallowed by the river around them—he doubted it was still even strapped to her thigh. "I can't—I can't hold on!"

"Dammit, Carter! You don't let go!"

She sobbed and looked down at the flooded ravine. When she raised her eyes again, he knew she was losing hope.

"Carter! That's an order! Keep hold!" He tightened more—impossibly—could feel her bones beneath her sleeve.

Pain radiated through him as something hit him from behind. The force of the blow propelled him further over the edge, the arm wrapped around the post now free—he struggled to regain some stability, dug his fingers into the solid stone. He felt his fingernails bend backwards, knew that he'd lost a few. He was hit two, three more times by debris, saw lights flash when something hard smashed into the back of his head.

"Sir!" She tried again for the clasp of the pack, tried to shrug out of it without undoing the buckle, but only succeeded in sending it sliding down her body, catching at her hips, upsetting their already precarious center of balance. She screamed when another branch whipped by her, the jagged end catching on her head, tearing into her scalp. When she turned her head back, he saw blood in her sodden hair, welling up out of the wound. "Sir." Another sob. She was breaking.

He watched her face give—knew that she was nearly out of strength. And his soul went cold—colder than the water swirling around him, colder than the stone he'd dug into. He couldn't pull her up without her working, too. Couldn't do it at all if she lost the will to survive and let go.

How long had it been—three—four minutes, since the water had burgeoned up out of nowhere and flooded this ravine? They'd been only part way across the stone bridge, Teal'c and Daniel had already passed the pillars at the far end and were on the upper part of the path back down the mountain. The trail dipped down to the bridge over the sharply angled canyon, then aimed back upwards, following the natural curve and rise congruent with volcanic mountains. Carter had been in front of him, and had been the first to hear the rumble above them. She had stopped, turned, and urged him to hurry.

If she'd just gotten herself off the bridge, as he'd ordered, she would be safe already.

Instead, she'd reached for him when the first of the water had reached him, shouting something about his bad knee, and how quickly the water could destroy his footing.

He'd grabbed her arm just as a large boulder had pushed her own legs out from under her—they'd landed hard on the bridge, her half-off it—he'd just had enough time to grasp the pillar before the harsh trickle had become a full-blown flood.

----OOOOOOO----

They'd stepped through the 'Gate the previous day. A MALP had originally been dispatched to P7L-626 to make first contact some weeks before, and it had sent back images of paradise. The 'Gate sat high on a cliff overlooking a vast expanse of blue, clear ocean. The MALP arm had panned right and captured pictures of high, rugged volcanic mountains behind it. It hadn't caught images of people, just the clear outline of a building on the top of one of those mountains. A building that looked a whole lot like one of the buildings on Ernest's planet.

Daniel had been impossible.

"Jack—we have to go!" He'd gestured with both hands, sitting all the way forward on his seat, both elbows braced as if for war on the conference table. "General Hammond—there could be information there that would help us to understand other races like the Asgard, and the Nox. We might find another repository of knowledge there. That information could be invaluable to us—it's too important for us to just leave there."

"There's no easy way to get to it. We'd have to hike up those mountains." Major Carter had leaned forward, studying the slightly grainy images.

"If it's there, it's important. Vital information." Daniel had been emphatic.

Jack remembered turning and looking at the General. "He's got a point, sir. We do need to gather all the intel that we can."

"We've been working on technology that will allow us to download alien technology into our own computers." Carter had spoken from O'Neill's right. "Sirs, if this building does indeed contain a cache of knowledge like we found on Heliopolis, it could be invaluable. It would be a shame to leave it there to be discovered by someone else." Her implication had been clear. They couldn't leave it for the Goa'uld.

"Colonel O'Neill, do you believe this mission to be worth whatever risks might arise? It looks like a long way up and back." Hammond had been frankly skeptical.

Jack had turned towards the screen. He'd spent some time at Hickam AFB in Hawaii. He and some of the other guys had hiked many times up into mountains just like those—the Ko'olau range on the island of O'ahu had some of the most stunning views he'd ever seen. And just off the Nu'uanu Pali had been an old highway that he and some buddies had ventured down once, to see the crash site of a World War II fighter. He _knew_ mountains like those on the screen.

He'd taken a deep breath and surveyed the rest of his team, then returned his gaze to the vision of paradise projected before them. "If we get information that will help us fight the Goa'uld, then yeah. It'd be worth it." He'd shifted in his seat. "Otherwise, it'll be a long, hard hike for nothing."

Hammond had only deliberated a few moments before consenting with a harsh nod. "Then you have a go. SG-1, you'll depart at 800 hours tomorrow."

They'd estimated two days up, two days down. Full gear, full packs, they'd 'Gated through weighed down with more than just hope for a good outcome. They rarely took so much with them off-world anymore—rarely needed anything other than the basics and extra clips and rounds. Carter had carried the naquadah generator in her pack, along with a computer and some memory storage doohickeys she'd been working on. The remainder of the supplies had been parceled out amongst the rest of them.

The weather had favored them—sunny—balmy—perfect. By the end of the first day they had reached far beyond the midway point and had camped in a high clearing. By the time the sun had reached its zenith the following day, they'd already explored the building and found it to be filled with exactly nothing. A wall with some writings had also been marred by a large blast impact. Someone had found this place before them, and someone had destroyed whatever had been here. The mission had been a bust.

But Jack had been right—the views were truly stunning. The 'Gate was on an island—slightly smaller than Kaua'i, he estimated—a single mountain in the center, scooping down to wet green lowlands and white sandy beaches—and nothing else but water for as far as they could see. The mountains were definitely volcanic, cragged and sharp, densely covered with trees and undergrowth. What had made the hike easier had been the trail carved into the side of the rock, and the stone bridges spanning the ravines.

When they'd started their descent, the sun had been bright over them. As they'd traversed the mountain, they'd assumed that the growing darkness they'd noticed was due to the overgrown forests above them, blocking out the sun. The sudden deluge of rain had taken them by surprise.

The Colonel had cursed—he knew better. He hurried the pace, pushing his team into a near-run to get down the mountain as soon as possible. The rain had settled hard—driving down relentlessly. He'd started to worry when the tiny falls hidden in the deepest crevices of the ravines had started flowing more freely. They'd crossed two of the four bridges he'd mapped during the trip up, and he and Carter had been halfway across the third, and longest, of the bridges, when the wall of water had enveloped them.

----OOOOOOO----

Her hand slid a fraction more. She stared up at him with wide, clear eyes. Terrified eyes.

"Don't let go." He knew she couldn't hear him. "Carter—Sam—don't let go."

Another forceful wave hit, shoving him even further towards the edge. He saw her calculate, saw her plan.

"No!" He was screaming now, hysterical, he knew. "Don't! Dammit, Sam! Listen to me!"

She dangled for a second more, her eyes framed now, by pink rivulets—the blood seeping from the wound in her scalp now tempered by the water. He was pushed a bit more by the river, and he rammed his already damaged knee into the stone to try to stop the slide—but his chest now hanged suspended completely over the edge—his belt buckle scraped the nose of the stone.

With a slow shake of her head, she let out another sob. He saw the change in her eyes. It was deliberate, the final slide of her hand down his wrist.

And he knew that for the rest of his life, he'd be able to feel her fingers.

Grasping at his hand one more time before sliding off and following her into the void.


	2. Dry Ground

_Dry Ground_

He'd felt hands on his lower legs, grasping at his ankles, then the sensation of being pulled backwards through the water, his chin scraping on the stone bridge. He'd inhaled water, choking on the mud that had permeated it. Hands grabbed at his pack, his vest, and he was hauled unceremoniously through the torrent to be deposited on the embankment. Daniel had helped him flip him over, sit up and remove his pack, and he'd choked up some mud, spewing dirty water on the relatively dry ground beside him.

The rain had abated, but Jack didn't notice. The wetness and cold had permeated to his core, and he shuddered convulsively. Daniel still held him upright, and he hated that he needed the support.

"Jack, what happened?" The archaeologist eyes were wide, questioning.

He could barely hear Jackson, the sound of the river still roared past them. "Did you see where she went?"

"Jack—we didn't see anything—where is she?"

"I don't know!" The Colonel stood, letting out a harsh, loud groan of pain, and limped over to the pillar at the end of the bridge, following the flowing water as far as he could with his gaze. "She let go—"

"Of what?" Daniel joined him, shrugging himself under O'Neill's arm, taking his weight on his own shoulders. Jack was too tired, too worried, to be grateful.

"I had her hand, and we were slipping—and she let go!" He gestured towards the water, spit another piece of debris to the side, "She just gave up and let go!"

Teal'c was already making his way down the edge of the ravine, searching the muddy, debris-filled water for any sign of their team mate.

Daniel maneuvered Jack back from the bank, towards the tree where he'd been propped earlier. "Stay here—I'll go help Teal'c!" And then he'd lowered the Colonel and stepped away, gesturing to him with both hands. "Stay here."

Daniel had hiked downhill quickly, his boots sideways to the rise of the mountain, gripping the undergrowth for support. He joined Teal'c on a ledge, scanning the river and surroundings. The mountain abruptly ended at this ledge, dropping another twenty feet or so before becoming passable again. The ravine continued downhill, briefly becoming little more than a waterfall before settling back between recognizable banks. The water's flow was rugged, choppy, and wild, and no blond head bobbed anywhere near. Teal'c scowled, and Daniel shook his head. Silent, understanding each other, they climbed slowly back up the mountain.

Jack had watched until they'd disappeared from his vision. He'd leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes, fighting for control, knowing he'd lost it somewhere in the swirling depths of the flash flood.

She'd just given up. And he knew—_knew_—why. She'd seen him slipping over the edge, known that he was losing his stability, and she'd decided to save him by sacrificing herself. Known her unwieldy weight was why he couldn't gain purchase on the slick stone of the bridge.

And Teal'c had already been there to drag him in—if she'd only given him a few more seconds. He cursed, screwed his eyes shut even more tightly. _Damn idiot. Stupid._

He swiped at the water still dripping down his face—residue from the river? Rain? Something else? He didn't care. He pushed hard against his eyes with the palms of his hands, fighting to regain control of his breathing, his pulse.

_Stupid. _

He moved his leg and grimaced in pain. He'd thought he'd torn that ligament again, but now he thought it might just be a sprain. He could get up—

But Daniel and Teal'c were coming up the mountain towards him, their faces grim.

"The water was indeed moving fast, O'Neill." Teal'c stopped next to him, extended his hand to help the Colonel rise. "I would assume that she has been carried downstream."

"We need to go to the base of the mountain—find the outlet." Daniel shook his head. "But even then—Jack." He couldn't finish.

"We'll find her."

"Jack—did you see that? That flood was—" He faltered, removed his glasses and wiped them on his t-shirt. "I just don't see _how_."

_How she'd survive_.

Those were the words Daniel was too afraid to say. O'Neill looked away from his team mates, towards the ravine where the flow was beginning to ebb. He blinked and saw a flash of her face, the pink trails of blood running down her cheeks, her wild, terrified eyes flashing with something—resignation? Determination. Resolve.

Jack pulled himself to his feet, his hand clasped around Teal'c's forearm. "She's strong, Daniel. She's a fighter."

"You said she gave up."

"Dammit, Daniel. You can't think that way. Think like that and we'll never find her."

"But Jack—"

Jack reached down for his pack, every muscle in his body screeching with hurt. "We'll find her." He used anger as momentum to swing the pack back up on his shoulders. "We'll find her."

"But how?" Ever the pessimist, their Daniel.

But Jack didn't have the time or the inclination to argue. He secured his pack with a click, briefly mourned the loss of his weapon, having lost it in the first onslaught of water, and turned himself towards the trail.

"Come on." He limped towards the path. "We won't find her by standing around."

----OOOOOOO----

Her first thoughts were pain. She was dry, prone, lying on something not hard, yet not soft. Her head pounded, the throbbing exacerbated when she cracked open an eyelid to see where she was.

She'd expected to be dead. The water had flung her hard down the mountain, and she'd fought it as best she could. It had been easier once the plastic buckles on her pack finally cracked and the whole thing had been washed away from her. She'd been more buoyant without the weight of the generator and naquadah that the pack had carried.

She'd lost consciousness near the bottom of the ravine, she thought, remembering that she could see the beach below as the dark stone outcropping had neared her. She'd tried to angle around it, but a log behind her head pushed her headlong into the rock. She remembered nothing else.

Waking up somewhere so peaceful somehow seemed incongruous. Unnatural.

She closed her eye again and cogitated on what she'd seen. Walls the color of straw, low, raw beams, and a thatched roof of some sort. Light had streamed in from somewhere, but she'd have had to turn her head to see from where, and the pain radiating in her head made that impossible.

Sam didn't feel as if she were in danger. The room she lay in smelled—pleasant. Moist. Like Florida. Or what she imagined Florida to smell like. Or that might have been the concussion talking. It was hard to separate real images from those she'd had in her mind while she'd been fighting there in the river.

Like the Colonel, his face pained, his eyes furious, knowing what she planned to do. He'd been screaming at her, and even at the last moment had tried to pull her free from the water. She tried to erase that particular image, but knew it would be impossible.

So she focused again on her surroundings.

Someone was humming. The voice, low and melodious, sang words that seemed to be nonsense. The tune was non-existent—merely slight risings and lowerings of tone with that unintelligible continuous chant, mixed with a deep vibrato. She focused on the sound and knew instinctively it meant something—but _what_ she couldn't imagine. Neither could she tell if the hummer was male or female.

She breathed carefully, feeling the pull as cracked ribs expanded around her lungs. She tried not to cry out, but knew she failed, and was grateful that the only sound she heard herself make was a faint whimper. The humming did not falter, merely continued on. Sam hadn't been heard.

More movement was out. She needed to heal, and as long as she didn't feel immediate danger, she'd lie here, willing her bones to knit themselves together, her pain to lessen.

A breeze wafted in from somewhere, drifting over her face, her shoulders, cooling her tired body. Sam could feel a covering of some sort over her—knew as she took a quick inventory that she was naked beneath. Whatever it was that covered her was soft—suede-like—thin. It felt fibrous, yet plaint.

She fell back to listening to the low hum from her unknown companion. It soothed her, and she found herself drifting back to sleep.

----OOOOOOO----

When Sam woke again, it was night. The pounding in her head had lessened, and she cracked open both eyes this time. Nothing had changed—she still lay in the same room, the supple paper-like covering still in place over her body. She couldn't hear humming this time, just a rhythmic pounding from outside. She opened her eyes fully.

She'd been right about the thatched roof. In the darkness, she could just barely make out the various clusters of dried grasses that had been gathered and tied tightly together to make the overhead covering. The beams she'd seen earlier were raw, unvarnished, and lashed together with a thin rope of some sort. At first, she'd expected the walls to be thatch, too, but on closer examination, she'd found them to be finely woven mats attached to the beams. When she turned her head to the right, she saw that one of the mats had been rolled up about halfway from the floor, and tied with more of the rope that had lashed the beams together.

The night air was cleansing, and smelled of the ocean—salty, pungent, strong.

She breathed as deeply as she could without aggravating her ribs, and found the smell invigorating.

The rhythmic pounded stalled, and she heard someone make a short sound of completion, then a groan as if a great weight were being hefted. When she turned towards the sound, she saw a woman enter through an opening in the mats.

The woman was large—full bodied—broad shoulders and hips, rounded everywhere. Her lower body was wrapped in cloth much like the covering on Sam's bed, tied at the wide waist with a long rope decorated with shells. Her upper torso was bare, but for an intricately woven garland of flowers and feathers. Long black hair flowed around her—thick hair, curly, and coarse. In the modicum of light coming in from the outdoors, Sam could see that her skin was dark. In spite of her bulk, she moved with an innate, if somewhat hesitant grace. She crossed the room from the door to where Sam lay, and as she neared, Sam could see that her eyes were milky white—the woman was blind.

"Pehea 'oe?" The melodious voice intoned what sounded to Sam like a question. As the woman neared, she reached a foot out, found the place where Sam's bed lay, and then folded herself onto her knees down on the floor next to it. "Pehea 'oe?" The question again—asked more of herself than her patient.

The woman rested a large hand on Sam's chest, felt her breathing, and smiled. "Hanu nui. Maika'i." Her hands threw back the covering, and Sam fought the urge to cover herself back up. But the large, cool hands skimmed her limbs, her ribs, with efficient motions, then flipped the covering back in place. "Ao no ho'i." The hands lifted and felt Sam's heartbeat. "Polapola." The brown face broke into a wide, wonderful grin. "Polapola."

She felt Sam's cheek with the back of her hand, in apparently a universal search for fever, then smiled again. "Ikaika wahine." She then placed both hands on Sam's face, and mapped it out—"seeing" Sam in the only way a blind woman could.

Sam held as still as possible, but when the woman probed in her scalp where the tree branch had hit her, she couldn't help but flinch. The woman instantly withdrew her hands.

"Wahine—lana ka hiamoe." She stood in a fluid, if heavy, motion, and left.

Sam pulled the covering up to her chin. Steeling herself, she levered herself up on the bed, grimacing in pain. Every single part of her body hurt—from her head, where she suspected blood had started to flow again, to the soles of her feet. She fought a sob as she knelt, pulling the covering around her like a sarong. She had nothing to tie it with, so she held it with one hand and stood, unsteady, grabbing onto one of the support poles for balance. The soles of her feet screamed and burned with pain, and Sam would have buckled with it, had it not been for the noise outside.

"Wahine!" A look at the door told her that her caretaker had returned. "Wahine! A'ole!" She entered, reaching out both hands as if to implore. "A'ole." She motioned with both hands—palms down. "Moe. Hina moe."

Sam watched as she neared, allowed the woman to find her where she stood. Strong hands grasped her upper arms and guided her unerringly back to the pallet where she'd been lying. The woman stopped, felt her cheek again, then ran her hands along Sam's body. She felt the clothing Sam had created from her covering, and grinned again. "Hilahila." She patted Sam's waist through the covering, then turned, reached into a basket and withdrew a length of coarse rope. "Hiki'i." She threaded the rope around Sam's waist, then motioned with her hands. "Hiki'i ka'ai." Sam fashioned a knot in the rope, the woman following her motions with light touches of her hands on Sam's.

She smiled broadly, making a last check of Sam's face. Finally, she turned her head slightly to the side and said loudly, "Hele, e ku'u haku."

And in the doorway appeared another large shape—this one powerful, sure. Male. He entered the room, ducking his head as he passed through the door. He wore clothing similar to the woman's, except that he wore a thick band on his head—made of the same material as Sam's covering, but decorated with ink drawings. He appraised Sam thoroughly, taking in her face, her newly formed clothing, the awkward way she stood, the frank, acute pain she could not hide. He did not smile, only approached their newcomer, grasped her chin between his index finger and his thumb, and moved her head from side to side.

"Ke nohea." He smiled. "Nohea o na wai." He dropped his hand and inclined his head. "You are welcome, here, malihini." His voice flowed smooth, low and soothing. "They call you Lady of the Water. Nohea o na wai."

"My name is Major Samantha Carter." Speech lay thick and bitter on her tongue. Her throat felt like gravel, and her voice sounded of it.

"Samantha." He tried the word. It jerked awkwardly of his tongue. "Samantha. I prefer Nohea—but if you like, I will call you Samantha."

"Most people call me Sam."

"Sam. Better. Now we are friends. Aikane." His smile widened. "And as friends, you will come to trust me with your true identity. You are not Samantha, and you are not Nohea o na wai."

Confused, Sam shook her head. "Who are _you_?"

"I am Mano." He reached up and removed the band on his head, revealing a golden tattoo on the smooth, dark skin between his eyes. "First Prime of the God Kama pua'a."


	3. Choices

_Choices_

"I don't think you should stay, Jack. I think you need to go back to the SGC and have that leg checked out."

Through the darkness surrounding them, Jack cast a withering look towards Daniel. They had returned to the 'Gate, and were sitting on the stone platform that surrounded it. Jack had rummaged through his pack and found an Ace bandage, and was wrapping it tightly around his knee.

"If we 'Gate home, Daniel, Doc Fraiser won't let me come back. That's not acceptable."

"But look at the swelling." Daniel thrust a hand towards Jack's knee, "It looks twice the normal size."

O'Neill ignored him, finishing his ministrations to his leg and securing the bandage with those ubiquitous little bandage clips. He stood, testing it, and found that it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had before. He reached into a pocket and came up with a handful of aspirin, which he tossed back and swallowed with a swig of water from his canteen.

Daniel watched Jack, shaking his head. "I can't believe you're going to try to walk on that thing. You're going to do permanent damage."

"Try not to think about it, Daniel."

"But the pain—"

"Try not to think about that, either." He finally caught his friend's eye. "Listen. I can't go back—you know that, I know that. It's my pain. Let me deal with it."

"But—" Daniel sighed and whipped off his glasses. He reached for the hem of his t-shirt and breathed on the lenses, then rubbed them with the soft fabric. It was a gesture that spoke more of distress than of cleanliness—by now the team had learned each other's nervous habits.

Daniel cared about her, too, was scared for her, too

Maybe that was why Jack tempered his voice when he spoke again.

"We have to find her. You know that, Daniel." Jack's lips thinned. "We can't just leave her here."

They'd returned to the 'Gate in the off chance that she'd arrived unscathed at the bottom of the mountain. Over the past five years, their rule had been to return to the 'Gate if they became separated during a mission.

If they could.

If Carter had been able to, she'd have been waiting there when they'd arrived. It had taken them long, long hours from afternoon and into the night to hike down the mountain—the stone path had been slick from the rain, and they'd encountered a spot in the trail where a mud slide had hindered their progress. Jack's knee hadn't helped their speed, either, his determined stoicism speaking more to his apprehension than the fact that he'd kept going even when he'd lost feeling in his foot.

Daniel knew that the injury was more than a simple sprain, but he also knew that his friend would stop at nothing to get Carter back.

To find her, no matter where she'd ended up.

Because it also wasn't acceptable to believe she was dead.

Jack sighed, and cast a long, appraising look at Daniel. "Daniel, I know that you're worried. We won't leave here until we know what's happened to her."

"Jack, it's possible that we'll never know that." Daniel was trying to be supportive, but he was a scientist, and scientists usually dealt with facts. With reality. "It's possible that she's just gone."

The Colonel ducked his head, then reached into his vest pocket for his flashlight. "I know. But if she's not, she needs help. Otherwise she would've beat us here."

"You don't even have your weapon—what if we ran into some hostiles?"

Jack glared at him, a look that translated even in the darkness. "I thought you were a pacifist." He flicked on the light and shined it in Daniel's face. "Tell you what. We run into hostiles, you can talk them to death."

Daniel frowned and pushed the light away with a backwards movement of his hand. "Jack, I'm just worried about you. You have to be in a lot of pain."

The light flicked back off, and Daniel saw Jack turn in the darkness and start walking to where Teal'c stood at the edge of the cliff. Daniel sighed, watching the Colonel limp towards the Jaffa.

Knowing that Jack's knee wasn't the only thing that hurt.

----OOOOOOO----

Teal'c lowered the scope and handed it to O'Neill. "I believe there is a path leading down to the sands from here." He extended an arm and pointed to a line of clear gray limned in the moonlight. "It starts at the edge—there— and extends downward, towards the sea."

The Colonel looked through the scope and noted the same formation. "Yeah—I see it. If she's been washed down from the mountain, the best bet is that she's been carried downstream. Those ravines might empty out into the ocean." The path looked stable, trudging up steadily from the beach up towards the 'Gate. "I'll bet that if there are people living here, they use that path to get to and from the 'Gate."

Teal'c studied the terrain for a moment longer before adding, "It appears well traveled. I believe you to be correct, O'Neill."

"Then let's gear back up and head out."

"Tonight?" Daniel had joined them.

"Now." The Colonel turned his head to look at him. "As soon as we can get packed up."

"Jack—I suppose it wouldn't do any good at all to suggest that you rest that knee for a little while longer?"

"Do you want to find her, Daniel?"

"Of course, I do," Daniel voice seethed with frustration. "But not if rushing it means that you wind up a cripple."

O'Neill stared at him steadily. "What if _not_ rushing means that Carter winds up dead?" He pivoted carefully on his bad knee and stopped, shoulder to shoulder, with Daniel. "I know that you're concerned. But let's just focus on the mission." He started back for the 'Gate, but then hesitated, and turned his head just enough so that Daniel and Teal'c could hear him say, "Let's just focus on bringing her home."

----OOOOOOO----

Mano smiled and took Sam's arm, helping her sit on her pallet. He matter-of-factly raised her right leg, examining the bottom of her foot.

"You are still injured. The salve has not yet taken effect." He turned to the blind woman and uttered something to her in their rapid language.

"I'm sorry," Sam shook her head, still staring at the man, at his tattoo. "First Prime?"

Mano lowered her leg, patting her calf gently. "Our people once lived on a different world. Many generations ago, we were taken away from our homeland, our Aina. We were brought here—a world very similar to our home, but very far away. The God who brought us here, Kama pua'a, is a lecherous God, a glutton. His very name means the God of Swine. His demands are difficult for our people."

The woman neared and knelt as she had before, raising Sam's foot and resting it in her lap. She then reached for a container and dug her fingers inside, withdrawing a handful of something that looked like jelly. As she applied it to Sam's foot, Mano continued.

"He requires us to sacrifice much—he steals our young girls and uses them as slaves and concubines, and takes our young men and works them to death. He is cruel to his people. He is an unworthy God."

"But if you're his First Prime, doesn't that make you Jaffa?" Sam's gaze flickered down to his abdomen. The paper-like garment he wore rode low on his waist. She hadn't noticed a symbiote pouch. Nor did she sense the presence of a Goa'uld. "You don't seem Jaffa to me."

"Kama pua'a is a minor Goa'uld. He chose to live here on this world, chose our people to be his slaves. He cares nothing for galactic domination. He has no use for an army. Jaffa are needed only when they will be put in harm's way. We are not expected to fight. So, we remain as we have always been. At the very least, he is realistic enough to know that he will never be a System Lord. We are not Jaffa—merely slaves to a bestial tyrant."

"If you no longer wish to serve this—God—then why don't you leave through the Stargate?"

The woman finished smearing the thick paste onto Sam's foot and had removed some waxy leaves from a basket. She applied one to the bottom of Sam's foot, and tied it snugly with a soft string. She then lifted Sam's left foot and started the process again.

"Sam, this is our home." Mano smiled sadly. "We cannot return to the land of our fathers. We are a peaceful people—we wish to live simply. Those who have left this world and traveled to others have not returned—they have died from disease, and from war. We wish to stay here, in our new homeland."

"Can't you kill him?"

"We are a beautiful people, a strong people. Through the years, he has traded away our keiki—our children. They are valuable as slaves and as hosts. He has sold them to other Goa'uld in exchange for technology. He is protected at all times by a personal shield, controlled by a band he wears on his arm. We have no weapons capable of penetrating this shield. We cannot kill him."

"And you think I can?"

"We have brought our traditions with us—our stories. I believe that one of them involves you."

"Me?" Sam's eyes widened. She winced as the woman touched a particularly raw spot on her foot. "I don't understand."

"We found you after the flood. We had gone to check on our fish ponds—pools that we create by stacking walls of rocks in the ocean. When the tide is high, the fish are brought in by the waves. When the tide recedes, they cannot escape. You were lying near one of our pools—at the base of the mauna—the mountain. You were bare, in the sand, your white skin gleaming like the inner shell of the Opihi. Your hair ran red with blood. When we saw you, we knew that you had come to bring us salvation. We knew that you were the Goddess Pele."

Sam closed her eyes, attempting to absorb Mano's story. The fact that she had been found naked, she chose to ignore. What she couldn't grasp was the fact that these people thought that she was a goddess. And that they thought that she could kill a Goa'uld all by herself. Her head started to throb again.

Mano seemed to sense her discomfort. "Pele is the goddess of fire, of creation. She is a tempestuous woman who can change her appearance at will. She normally chooses to be a beautiful woman, with hair as red as blood. In the legend, Kama pua'a lusts for Pele—desires her to be his mate—but she is disgusted by him. She lures him to the flame of the volcano and destroys him with lava—with the a'a and pahoehoe of the mountain."

"Why do you think that I'm this Pele?" She had been sitting up too long, her ribs, her back, her hips ached. She grimaced as the woman finished with her other foot and returned both feet to the floor. Mano edged closer, and each of them took one of Sam's arms, gently lowering her to the pallet. When she was as comfortable as possible, he placed a large hand on the side of her face—fatherly, brotherly—sweetly.

"Kama pua'a knows us. We are large and brown and we are not gods." He scanned her again, taking in her gold hair, her blue eyes, the pale skin showing above her make-shift dress. "You, he does not know. You are lithe and white and lovely. He will believe you to be the goddess."

"And what would I have to do?"

"Just as the legend foretells." Mano stood, reached for the band that had been on his head. Fingering it, he returned his gaze to Sam. "You must lure him to the Heiau on Halemaumau. There you will cause the a'a and pahoehoe to flow freely, and he will be destroyed."

"How am I supposed to do that? How do you expect me to kill a God?" Sam could hear the disbelief in her own voice, knew that her inner scientist was showing.

"You will heal—slowly, perhaps, but you will heal. We have medicines and salves that will help you." He placed the band back on his head. "You will remain here, in this hale—this house—with Tutu Mahina. And you will rest, and allow your body to grow strong."

He started for the door, but turned just before he reached it.

"And as you heal, you will plan. Plan for a way to make Halemaumau erupt and kill the pig that is our God."


	4. Decisions

_Decisions_

"Inu." Tutu Mahina placed a basket on the floor and knelt at Sam's side, holding a wooden saucer full of a vile-smelling liquid. "Inumia."

Sam tried, but couldn't bring herself upright. Mahina set the shallow dish on the floor and inserted her arm between Sam and the pallet, lifting her to a sitting position. She found one of the vertical support poles for the roof and leaned her charge against it, then reached for the saucer and raised it to Sam's lips, feeding her as if she were a child.

It didn't taste nearly as bad as it smelled—salty, with a hint of coconut. Sam downed the entire contents of the bowl, surprised at how thirsty she was. When her stomach growled, she glanced at the blind woman in embarrassment.

Tutu Mahina grinned, her hand unerringly finding Sam's abdomen and patting it fondly. "Pololi. Make ai." She reached in to the basket beside her and found another dish, larger this time, piled high with a violet colored paste and some white meat. Sam hesitated in taking the dish, but Tutu Mahina, using two of her fingers like a spoon, served up some of the fish with the paste, and shoved it unceremoniously into Sam's mouth.

It wasn't gourmet anything—bland, slightly fishy, but Sam still found herself reaching for the bowl and using her own fingers to down the rest of it. Mahina sat by, listening, measuring with her fingers from time to time how much Sam had eaten. When the dish was empty, she reached for another plate from her basket—this one filled with fruits.

"Ai a ma'ona." Mahina smiled, placing the plate by Sam's side. She hefted herself up again, and gathered the empty vessels, placing them into the basket. Quietly, gracefully, she exited the hale.

Sam watched her go. Absently, she chose a piece of fruit and raised it to her mouth, but her appetite had been satisfied by the other food. She tasted it, but was no longer interested in eating. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the pole.

She hurt, but at least her head no longer throbbed—and she could move more easily. She suspected that whatever Mahina had given her in that small dish had contained some sort of analgesic property. She knew that she had at least one cracked rib, but she could breathe well enough if she remembered not to do it too deeply. Her legs and arms no longer ached as much, and she could stretch out her back more easily. The light in the hale was dim, but she could see well enough to count the bruises up and down her body. She more than slightly resembled a topographical map with her own skin tone interspersed with large, ugly blotches of color.

The real issues were the soles of her feet. She steeled herself, then curled one foot up onto the opposite thigh. Carefully untying the soft rope securing the leaves to her foot, Sam peeled back the dressing. She grimaced. Deep red welts and cuts marred the skin there—injuries she didn't remember sustaining.

Sam retied the dressing onto her foot and stretched the leg back out, trying to recall the events that had brought her here, but all she could see was the Colonel's face, his anger, his frustration with her. She reviewed again the hike down the mountain, her first realization that they were in the path of the water. She'd heard the Colonel yell at her—he'd ordered her to safety, but she'd worried that he wouldn't be able to reach the rise before being whisked away.

Looking back, she had probably put him in greater danger. Her hesitation had cost both of them time.

She knew that when she saw the Colonel again, he'd give her an earful about it.

_If _she saw the Colonel again. Truth be told, she didn't know for sure whether he'd survived, whether he'd been as lucky as she had been.

She knew that Daniel and Teal'c had probably been on high ground when the deluge had hit. She'd seen both of them clear the end of the bridge and climb the twenty or so feet to where the path took them back up into mountainous terrain. They'd paused, discussing something that neither she nor the Colonel had been able to hear, and her attention had been focused on not slipping on the slick stone, before being alarmed by the sound of the rushing water. She hadn't even seen the boulder that had thrown her off the bridge, she'd only felt the Colonel's fingers grasping for her, and the hard yank on her shoulder as he'd crashed to the stone bridge, still holding her. It had been miraculous, and a sign of her SO's sheer obstinate nature, that she hadn't fallen long before she had. She raised her right arm and saw the clear outline of his hand, thumb on one side of her forearm, and four fingers on the other, bruised into it. He probably bore similar marks.

That O'Neill had been suspended more than halfway off the bridge by the time she'd let go had not escaped her notice—she'd seen his hand slip off the pillar, known he was losing traction, and made her decision.

She'd expected to die. Not that anyone really knows what that entails—she didn't truly know anything other than that she couldn't let him die, too.

Waking up here, waking up at all, hadn't been part of the plan.

Not that she'd really had a plan other than for the Colonel _not_ to die. But her waking up naked and suddenly finding herself elevated to the status of goddess had her a little reeling. She fingered the fruit still in the bowl next to her, absently brought a piece of it to her lips.

Whatever else, she needed some strength.

She needed to make some decisions.

----OOOOOOO----

Daniel had beat him to the 'Gate. As Jack loaded his pack on his back, he watched as Daniel hesitated near the DHD.

Jack knew that strategically, he was being apparently stupid—knew that he was inviting worse injury for his leg. He knew that intelligent people, stoical military types, would call for reinforcements, bring in equipment and man-power to mount a large search and rescue operation.

Certainly, Major Carter was important enough to the SGC and to Earth itself to merit such an effort—Hammond would stop at nothing to get her back, safe and sound. All it would take was a quick dial of the 'Gate, and rapid radio transmission, and in no time, SG-1 would have their back up—and a butt-load of equipment and ordinance to make a hell of a rescue.

But that was precisely the problem.

O'Neill had seen a flood like this before. A young airman—Lieutenant Aaronson—had once accompanied him and some friends on a trip up to Sacred Falls, near a little town called Hau'ula on the north shore of O'ahu. They'd made the trip quickly, careless about the weather. O'Neill remembered there'd been lots of beer—and that the deep, dark waters at the base of the falls had been wretched cold in January. But they'd been potent with their own invincibility, and ignored the rain and the way the falls had grown more wild, more heavy with each passing wave of the storm.

Eventually they'd realized their danger, and had packed up and headed back down the trail. The water had hit them near the bottom, and Aaronson, bringing up the rear, had been last coming back up out of the ravine. The flood had caught him before he'd reached the bank, and carried him over a mile to where the river met the ocean.

They'd found his body, naked, bruised, broken, tangled in some ironwood logs on the beach. His pack had been found thirteen feet up in a tree, and they'd never found his clothes—the force of the water had torn everything off the young man—even his shoes.

Jack couldn't do that to Carter—and as stupid as it was to not bring in the cavalry, he couldn't force humiliation on top of the injuries she'd certainly already sustained.

Girding himself, he approached Daniel at the DHD. He caught the other man's eye, looked steadily at him, preparing his words carefully.

"I know you think I'm being stupid, Daniel."

"A little."

"I know that you want what's best for her, too."

"Yes."

"I'll make a deal with you."

"What's that?"

"Teal'c and I found a path down to the beach. There will be places there where the water from the mountains drains out into the ocean. I've spotted two with the scope—the further one looks like it's recently had a large amount of water pass through. It'll take maybe an hour there, an hour back. We don't find her within that time, we'll call in back up."

"Two hours."

"I swear to you. Two hours."

Daniel regarded him with some skepticism. "I'm not giving up on Sam, Jack. I know you think I am, but I'm not."

"I know." O'Neill did know that. Daniel had long since admitted that he saw Sam as a sister of sorts—and most assuredly a close, close friend. He wouldn't just abandon hope. Daniel just dealt with things as they were—the facts as he found them. His inner scientist didn't allow much for optimism at times.

"I just think that you're being foolhardy—believing that you can do everything on your own."

"I know that, too." Jack's lips thinned. He shook his head once, swiped at his nose with the side of his hand. "I knew a guy once—who was swept away once—kind of like Carter, but in less water. When we found him, the water had ripped away everything he was wearing."

Daniel frowned, understood, then said, "Oh—_geez_."

"I'm not sure I want a unit of marines marching in to find Carter in that situation."

Teal'c had silently joined them, and he placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "I believe O'Neill's compromise will be adequate, Daniel Jackson. I do not wish for Major Carter to suffer further than she already has."

"No. Me either." Daniel reached down for his backpack and slung it over his shoulders.

"Besides," O'Neill continued. "If you let her get found by a bunch of jarheads when she's in her all together, you know she'll kick your ass."

"Yes." Daniel nodded in agreement. "Yes, she _would_ do that."

"So let's go." O'Neill had appropriated Daniel's side arm, and he checked the load and then shoved it into his holster. "Two hours."

Daniel gazed at him steadily, gauging the Colonel in the white light coming from the planet's moon. Finally, he braced himself and took a deep breath.

"Let's go."

_Note:_

_Just a little bit about the language. Hawaiian vowels mostly sound like the short English vowel sounds—a (ah) e (ay) i (ee) o (oh) and u (oo). Consonants are the same as in English, although "w" is sometimes said as a "w" and sometimes as a "v"—it depends on the accompanying vowels. I am not fluent in Hawaiian, although I speak a mean Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English), and I am not using the most common forms of the words that I'm writing. There are several English to Hawaiian dictionaries on line if you are curious as to what words mean. Or, you're welcome to message me and ask. _

_I don't bite, much._

_Pele (Pay-lay) is the goddess of the volcanoes in Hawaii—she's one of the most noteworthy deities in the culture, and has many, many legends surrounding her. An association with Kama pua'a is known, and part of Hawaiian legend. I am gleefully stealing these ideas and transporting them to Stargate Land, where I am making them my own. I intend no disrespect to the Hawaiian culture or people—I am kama'aina—meaning that I have been adopted by the land—having lived there for about half my life._

_And Sacred Falls is a real place—as is Hau'ula—and there really is a crashed plane up near the Nu'uanu Pali. It's pretty cool._


	5. Searching

_Searching_

The path leading down to the beach had actually been a steep flight of stairs, hidden as they'd been by the side of the cliff. The three men had made short work of the steps and emerged out into a small bluff above the beach, the gray stone of the walkway surrounded by a combination of harsh grasses and waxy-leaved ground cover.

O'Neill recognized the smell of the ocean after a storm—briefly amazed that the memory could span two worlds, two solar systems. But salt water was salt water, an ocean an ocean regardless of planet, he supposed, and the wind and rain had churned debris from the depths to the surface, and the tide had deposited it on the sand. Strewn upon the white beach, bulbs and leaves of seaweed gleamed, wet and viscous, in the moonlight. The smell he recognized—slightly dank, slightly rotten—and his mind took him back to his time at Hickam, when the beach was an adventure, and the seaweed merely an obstacle to entertainment.

He wondered absently if, hidden amongst those leaves would be the quivering opaque bubbles of tiny Portuguese Man O' Wars—the blue-tinged jellyfish that had once swarmed him and whose scar he still wore, thin and white, around one ankle.

"I thought that the ocean was supposed to smell pleasant." Daniel wondered out loud from his place behind O'Neill. Daniel had spent most of his life in deserts of one brand or another, where rain was cleansing and refreshing.

"Storms can often make the tide rough." O'Neill spoke without breaking his stride. "Choppy waters drag all kinds of crap up to the surface."

"It really is kind of gross smelling."

"Yep."

Several more minutes passed in silence before Daniel spoke again. "So, Jack, what exactly were you doing in Hawaii?"

"Training—joint exercises with an amphibious unit."

"What do Air Force officers need to learn amphibious tactics for? Isn't that a Navy thing—or something for the Marines?"

"We do fly out over the ocean, from time to time, Daniel. Sometimes you get shot down. It's a good idea to be able to swim a bit."

The sounds of their boots on the stone accompanied their thoughts for several yards.

Daniel put his thoughts into words. "I'm guessing there was more to it than that."

"You'd be guessing right."

"I'm also guessing that the real reason isn't nearly as simple as that."

"You'd be two for two." Jack glanced sideways at the ocean, taking in the moonlight shining on the waves breaking white on the sand. Further out, another line of breakers indicated the presence of a reef. "It was a special forces thing—our unit was prepping for a specific operation."

"Do I want to know what kind of operation?"

"Probably not."

Daniel nodded. He usually didn't. He had accepted the fact that Jack wasn't lily-white and pure when it came to his past military actions, but he also had long ago acknowledged that those same experiences had made Jack the man that he was today—a man whom Daniel trusted, even when he didn't necessarily agree with him.

They passed the first of the two deltas, the flow of the water down from the mountains had carved a wide gash in the beach. No bridge spanned the gap, but the flow from the mountains had slowed to a trickle, and they could cross it without trouble. Random debris scattered the beach around the mouth of the flow, but it was minor, and only a cursory scan of the branches and other fragmentary remains proved sufficient to ascertain that Carter wasn't there, nor any sign of her.

Daniel and Jack headed up the trail together, with Teal'c and his staff weapon bringing up the rear. The other washout lay around a slight bend—visible from the perspective of the 'Gate, but still hidden from where they trudged along the stone walkway.

Jack estimated that it was another two hundred yards away. He sighed and was grateful for the stone path—if he'd had to do this trek in the sand his knee would have been screeching by now. As it was, it had settled into a dull ache that wasn't unbearable. He counted himself lucky.

He scanned the mountain to his right, could see the building at the summit. It caught the shine of the moon and gleamed dully, like a pearl in a candle. The dense tropical forest obscured view of the actual trail to the top, but he could see indentations in the mountain—prehistoric riverbeds for lava. The crags provided a perfect conduit for water run off, and O'Neill and his team had been caught in one of them. With a practiced eye, he measured their journey from the top, estimating where on the side of the mountain the bridge had been, trying to decide for certain if this second canal into the ocean was the most logical place for Carter to have been carried.

He hoped that they weren't too late. It had been—he checked his watch—nearly twelve hours since the incident had taken place, and that was a long time for someone to wait for help.

His mind raced with possibilities. Jack had been trying to expunge his fears—trying to keep out of his line of focus the real possibility of finding her beyond help. He found as they closed in on the site, however, that images raced at him like rain on a windshield.

Head wound, compound fracture, broken neck, internal bleeding, impalement—the list was horrifying, and he forced himself to accept the reality that they might be headed to recover rather than rescue.

The thought of losing her was daunting. He hadn't allowed himself to dwell recently on _her_—had accepted their situation for what it was and tried his best to move on. But now, with the looming prospect that he'd lost any kind of future _whatever_—the profound grief that flooded through him had O'Neill wishing for something stronger than aspirin.

Daniel walked beside him, companionable in his silence, and Jack was grateful to have him there. With Daniel there, he couldn't descend into maudlin wretchedness.

As if sensing his thoughts, Daniel glanced at him and said, "I know we'll find her."

"Yeah." Jack knew nothing else to say to that. To elaborate would have been to lie outright.

"She did it to save you." Daniel continued. "She did it for you."

"That doesn't make it better, Daniel." Jack frowned. "If anything, it makes it worse."

"How's that?"

"Because if one of us had to go over, it should have been me."

"Why do you say that?"

Jack walked steadily for several beats before answering. "What do you look for every time you go through the 'Gate, Daniel?"

Daniel peered at him through his glasses. "I don't know—at first I just wanted to find Sha're." He walked along by O'Neill's side until adding, "Now, I guess, I'm excited by the discovery of it—new peoples, new worlds. The possibility of doing some good somewhere is never far from my mind. Killing a Goa'uld or two—liberating people—making a difference."

"So for you, the 'Gate offers you the opportunity to do good."

"Yeah, I guess."

"It's the same for Carter. She sees all this as an adventure—a fulfillment of a wish for her life to have meaning."

"She told you that?"

"No, but you can tell. She internalizes things—like you do. She's an idealist. She's young—driven. Carter's the opposite of me. If one of us has to go, it shouldn't be the one who still has a soul." He adjusted his pack even though it didn't need it. "It should've been me."

Daniel frowned. "Don't you see the Stargate as an opportunity? You've fought some pretty good fights. You've saved a lot of people. You've knocked off some Goa'ulds yourself."

"I don't do it because I'm idealistic, Daniel."

"Then why _do _you do it?"

O'Neill looked over at him. In the dark, shadowed by the moon, Jack's deep-set eyes were inscrutable. "Guys like me don't do the right thing because it's the right thing. We do it because we're hoping it'll cancel out some of the wrong things we've done."

Jack counted fifteen steps before Daniel spoke again.

"You're looking for redemption?"

But O'Neill only walked on, his answer the sound of his boots hitting stone.

----OOOOOOO----

The secondary wash out area was enormous. Huge logs had settled into the sand, and other debris and rubbish had butted up against them, making the area look like a huge beaver's dam.

O'Neill hesitated for the briefest moment before reaching into his pocket and removing his flashlight. Teal'c already had his on and had thrown a leg over the nearest of the logs, flicking the light from side to side. They moved from pile to pile, throwing aside branches, and peering under tree limbs. Rocks sat, incongruous, scattered amongst the rest of the debris. Random sprigs of shrubs mixed with the seaweed that had washed up, creating an impossible mix of sea and shore.

O'Neill rounded the entire mess, wading ankle deep in the surf to come around on the other side. The early morning sun had begun to tint the horizon pink, and in the spare light he could see walled off fish ponds just beyond the tide pools of a somewhat sheltered bay.

Obviously, there were people around—people sophisticated enough to have engineered the tidal pool fisheries. He scanned the beach further on, but didn't see anything more than large bunches of sea weed and a few more scattered logs.

He checked under two, three more batches of refuse, pushed away branches, moved large stones. And found exactly nothing.

Moving further up towards the bluff he came up onto dryer sand, pushing aside wads of drying grass and other bits of vegetation.

He spotted something black, non-organic, half-buried under an ironwood log. Nearing it, he shoved it with his toe, instantly recognizing the object.

A boot. US military issue.

"Here!" He shouted, dropping his pack on the nearly-dry top of the log. "I found sign!"

Teal'c reached him first, and together they dug out the sand from around the boot. Jack pulled it out of the crevice beneath the heavy log, and then found and snagged a BDU shirt—even in the dim morning light, they could make out the name over the breast pocket—_Carter_. One arm had been ripped completely off, and the back had been torn from hem to yoke.

He exchanged a glance with Daniel.

O'Neill threw the shirt over his pack and moved on, bending whenever anything looked promising.

He was surprised to find his P-90 lodged in a thick bush that had been entirely uprooted and impaled on a branch. He broke it free, dangling it from one hand while he kept searching.

Teal'c, meanwhile, had moved on to another pile of conglomerate. He shoved aside a disarticulated tree limb to retrieve a large object that turned out to be Sam's pack. Entangled within the branches on the same limb swung the dull gleam of stainless steel. The Jaffa stepped aside as Jack neared, inclining his head towards the branch.

Dog tags.

The Colonel flexed his hand to disguise its shaking as he reached out and pulled them free from the mess. Without looking at them, he dropped the chain into the front pocket of his vest. It settled with a sickening clink.

The sound of the ocean punctuated the moment. Standing with the dawn breaking around them, they quietly scanned the rest of the area.

Daniel spoke first. "I don't see her, Jack."

"If we don't see a body, it might mean that she's not dead."

"Jack—there's a whole ocean out there—presumably—"

"Then _presumably_ she'd have washed back in. We'd see something." He rubbed a hand over his face, the stubble on his cheeks releasing sand as his fingers passed. "There would be _something_."

Teal'c motioned with his staff weapon towards the walled pools in the shallow bay. "Those pools have been made by humans." He turned his head back towards his companions. "I believe that they would have come after the storm to ensure that their ponds had survived."

"So?" Daniel studied them, shaking his head.

"So, they would have been here soon after the flood." The Jaffa looked off in the opposite direction from the one they'd come. "If Major Carter had ended up here, perhaps they would have found her. If she had been found alive, perhaps they would have taken her back to their place of residence, or their village."

O'Neill nodded. "I thought of that."

Daniel bit his lip. Ducking his head, he kicked at the sand absently, sending a light spray out in front of him. "You said two hours, Jack. It's been that and more."

"I know, Daniel. I'm going to—"

But Daniel didn't let him finish. "I think we should keep going—I just don't feel that she's dead. I think that whoever built these pools has her, and is taking care of her."

Jack raised his head and looked at his friend. "You do?"

"I do."

"As do I, O'Neill." Teal'c shifted his gaze past the bay, where a gentle slope rose up past the strange mix of creeping plants and grass to disappear into a small ironwood grove. He gestured with his staff weapon to a point above the forested area. "Look, Daniel Jackson."

In wispy tendrils above the trees, kissed pink by the rising sun, they recognized smoke as it wafted upward.

Jack reached for Sam's shirt and shoved it into her pack. The single boot he left on the log, useless without its mate. He snapped his P-90 onto his vest, and reached for the pack, hefting it by its side-bound compression handle. He stood, balancing the weight, testing his leg on the loose, soft sand.

Daniel was the first one to move. He grabbed the pack from Jack, tugging it over his own arm.

"Don't be an idiot, Jack. Just this once." His glasses flashed in the dawn as he turned his face towards the bay and the forest beyond. He moved forward, up the slope.

Jack watched him climb, then felt Teal'c's large hand clasp his shoulder.

The Jaffa passed him by without a word, leading him up the bluff, away from the dawn.


	6. New Day

_New Day  
_

She'd slept hard—although stark, real dreams roiled in her head throughout the night. At one point, her eyes had flared open, and she'd remembered crying out, trying to sit up, but a warm hand had gripped her shoulder, kept her prone.

Sam had tried to relax, tried to release the image in her head, of the Colonel's body lying amongst the rubble, his eyes open, unblinking, even as rain fell in large drops on their irises. The image had been enough to draw her out of the reverie she'd sustained for most of the past several hours—and she'd finally truly _felt_ her predicament.

The Colonel would tell her figure out what she had and what she needed.

Her mind raced through her situation. She was amongst people who seemed friendly—they had fed her, and given her shelter. Kind, unseeing Mahina had bound her wounds and doctored her with a salve that had already made it possible for her to stand without the pain forcing tears from her eyes. The salty-sweet tea had been administered twice more before Mahina had urged her to sleep. Sam could lie on her side now without the rib burning in protest, and her bruised body didn't seem as stiff as before.

Her head still ached, but compared to what that pain had been, it was a minor thing. She'd gingerly probed the wound in her scalp, and found it to be scabbed over, no longer oozing, although extremely tender to the touch. But at least it no longer bled profusely. That was something.

She'd been asked to force the eruption of a volcano in order to kill a God, so Sam supposed that needed to go into the "have" column—she had a task to perform.

And try as she might, Sam couldn't summon up the proper amount of concern over that particular item on her list. She had, after all, once blown up a sun.

What did she need?

Decent clothing. Boots.

These people she'd fallen amongst didn't seem to place a great importance on clothing. Even now, Mahina slept next to Sam on her own pallet on the floor, still dressed only in the skirt she'd first appeared in. Sam wasn't ignorant of the fact that some cultures viewed nudity as a non-issue, but this was the first time, with the exception of the strange painted people who'd had symbiotic relationships with the white plants on PJ2-445, that she'd encountered it first-hand. Mano had blithely glossed over the particulars of how she'd been found, but she could only assume that the waters had torn off the clothing she'd been wearing before. Logic would conclude that it was long gone.

So she would be hard pressed to replace those particular items.

Move on.

She needed a way to contact the SGC.

Sam could find her way back to the 'Gate—figured that she wasn't really all that far from it—maybe a few miles at the most. As of yet, no one had actively prevented her leaving, although she also hadn't tried. She pondered for a moment on the wisdom of simply getting up and going, but decided that she didn't yet know enough about the salve and tea that Mahina had been dispensing. If the properties were temporary, she wouldn't get far before the pain set back in, and the searing hurt she'd endured while standing when Mano had first appeared was enough to dissuade her from attempting that. She wasn't afraid of pain, but didn't like the idea of inflicting herself with more than necessary. It made her weak, and she needed to conserve her energy.

She didn't have a radio, didn't have a GDO—she would have to first 'Gate to the Alpha site, and frankly, she wasn't sure how much she wanted to do that while dressed as she was. She smiled ruefully.

Apparently, she wasn't above a little bit of vanity after all.

_She needed her team._

This last one hurt. She stared at the finely woven mat that formed the wall of the hale, following the half inch wide bands of what appeared to be palm leaves as they dove over and under each other, meshing into a single unit. She missed her guys—and it had only been a matter of hours, as far as she knew. She'd been separated from them before, but she wasn't normally the one wounded and lost off world. That honor typically fell on Daniel or the Colonel.

She had felt a keen sense of loss earlier in the evening, when, out of habit, she'd reached for her dog tags and her hand had encountered only her own skin. She'd flattened her hand on her chest, willing herself not to show the intensity of her response—and even though her only companion was the blind woman she lay next to now, she'd not wanted to show that level of weakness.

She felt an ache burn in her eyes, and closed them against the tears that welled there. Whatever else, she needed to remain strong, and succumbing to panty-waist crying jags wouldn't help anything.

Sam suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired, infinitely weary. She buried a sob in the palm of her hand, felt more than a little shamed when the first drops wavered their way down her fingers to drip off her wrist into the mat beneath.

The hand on her shoulder stroked once, and Sam felt Mahina shift on her pallet.

"Keiki." The low, soothing voice behind Sam seemed to seep into her. "Keiki wahine." The hand began a rhythmic pattern on Sam's shoulder. "Moe, Nohea o na wai."

Memories struck Sam again. She recalled once when she was seven or so, she'd had a double ear infection, and the pain had been unbearable. Her mother had crushed aspirin in some honey for Sam to swallow down, but the medication hadn't helped the pain. Sam remembered spending long hours lying on her bed, her mother lying next to her, skimming her fingers over Sam's back and arms and singing nonsense songs.

"Moe." Tutu Mahina said again.

Sam closed her eyes, concentrating on the movement of Mahina's hand, and the hushed, half-song she'd begun to chant. Bathed in the beauty of the words, she found herself relaxing, drifting, being gradually soothed back to sleep.

----OOOOOOO----

The pinkish light of dawn filtered in through the door and under the walls when Sam next awoke. She could feel a gentle breeze on her back—knew that Mahina wasn't there anymore.

Sam rolled onto her back, bracing herself for a searing pain that didn't come. Experimentally, she rolled again, levered herself up into a sitting position, and took inventory again.

The wretched throb had subsided, leaving a dull ache in its place. Sam had actually endured worse in recent years—this current pain she could handle.

Pulling her legs towards her, she gingerly untied the ropes on her feet and checked her soles again. The raw looking welts had started to close, and her feet didn't look nearly as swollen. She retied the leaves, then took a deep breath and stood. It still hurt, but at least she didn't feel like passing out.

And besides, she really needed to find a bathroom—or whatever passed for one in this place.

She hobbled towards the door of the hale and emerged into the pale morning sun. Around her, a village bustled with the beginning of a new day.

Sam hadn't been entirely sure what to expect of this place. She'd heard other people while she'd been in the worst of her recovery—known that a town of sorts lived just beyond the mats of her hut. She hadn't expected this, however—an entire town of hales of varying sizes scattered across an area the size of several football fields.

Mahina's hale sat at the edge of the clearing. If she turned her head either way, Sam could see an eclectic mix of ironwood and palms encroaching on the wide expanse of grass. The fields ran up a hill, to where a stone altar of some sort sat on a rise. Just to the side of the altar, a large hale—at least ten times the size of Mahina's, cut an impressive figure. Another one, slightly smaller, occupied a spot further down the rise several dozen feet, and between the two structures burned several fires—from the activity surrounding them, they looked like cooking fires.

And people moved everywhere.

Men, women, children—all large-boned, healthy looking, and smiling. Like tutu Mahina, the majority of the women wore low slung skirts of the paper-like cloth Sam had wrapped around her body. Some had thrown wraps of the material over their shoulders like shawls. The men wore less—little more than loincloths. Most of the children wore nothing at all.

The people walked to and fro—carrying large bundles of grass, long poles with bunches of coconuts lashed together at either end, and piles of what looked like bark stacked for transport from place to place. Many of the women balanced a baby on one hip and a sturdily woven basket on the other. They moved in pairs or alone, purposefully, greeting each other as they went.

Sam watched as a group of children played in the grass just beyond the door to Mahina's hut. The girls and boys were distinguishable only due to their lack of clothing. Brown skinned, dark eyed, with flowing curly hair, they romped as if they had not a care in the world. And they probably didn't—they were healthy, raw, exuberant, joyful. White teeth flashed in wide, bright smiles as they chased each other in the soft, cool grass, tumbling and bobbling only to rise and chase again. In spite of her circumstance, her pain, Sam couldn't help but smile.

Her mind flew back to Mano and his request. She remembered that their God saw these children as little more than commodities—traded them to other Goa'uld for technology—used them as slaves for his other desires. She had wondered the night before if she would really take this request seriously—this task of killing the god Kama pua'a. Now she knew that she would do everything in her power to help them.

This place, these people, needed to be rid of their Goa'uld.

The hale was actually elevated on a platform made of stone and hard-packed earth. Two steps led down to the ground, where for several yards around the hale, the grass had been mostly worn away from traffic. A portion of a log, about six feet long, sat just to the right of the entrance, a circular wooden mallet leaned next to it. It reminded Sam of a rolling pin.

She started to descend the steps, but stopped at a man's shout.

"Aia la! Ali'i Wahine!"

Sam looked up to see that activity in the village had stopped. From where she stood, she was fully visible to the entire area, and everyone had frozen in place, staring at her. One woman, older, her black hair threaded with silver, fell onto her knees and bent towards Sam, bowing her face into the ground. One by one, the rest of the inhabitants followed suit.

Sam descended the steps and walked haltingly to the closest of the women. She bent, reaching for her arm. "Come on. You don't have to do that."

But the woman remained bowed, silent.

"People—I'm not a god—you don't have to—"

Sam looked around for Mahina, but didn't see her anywhere.

"Really—I'm just a normal person."

But prostrated the crowd remained, except for one girl—she appeared to be around fourteen—who raised her head and smiled.

Sam smiled back.

The girl rose, and hesitantly crossed the field, picking her way around people. She stopped around five feet away from Sam, bowing her head.

"Tuta Mahina is at the heiau. I am Kawehilani. I am to help you."

Sam internalized the name before she tried to speak it—_ka-vay-hee-la-nee_. "Thank you, Kawehilani." She took a step closer. "Can you take me to Mahina?"

"'Ae." Kawehilani nodded, her brilliant smile flashing again. "I will take you. Come with me, please, Nohea."

With a brief nod, Sam walked towards her. The soft grass cushioned her feet, and she found that with movement, she was starting to work some of the stiffness out of her body.

In the sun, however, the bruises on her body were more evident, and Sam felt a twinge of self-consciousness. Her skin was beyond pale—she hadn't done much tanning lately, and the BDU shirts they wore were long-sleeved. Compared to the beautiful people around her, she seemed more than ever like a piece of paper that had been colored on by an untalented two year old. She raised her right arm, seeing again the clear outlines of the Colonel's fingers on her wrist. She fought down the surge of panic that the marks evoked. Forced back the image of him hanging off the bridge, ready to fall rather than let her go.

Focus on the present, she told herself. Focus on the now.

The people around them had started to rise, to resume their normal activities. Sam watched them without looking directly at any of them. She smiled when she noticed the group of children that had fallen in line behind them. Kids were the same in most cultures—curious, carefree, without fear. One little girl, Sam guessed she was around four, ran up alongside Sam and reached up to grasp her hand. The little warm palm felt soft and slightly sticky, but her fingers slipped around Sam's and grasped tightly with a frank adoration that Sam found endearing.

Kawehilani, walking beside Sam, studied her with thinly veiled interest. They passed groupings of hales—Sam assumed that families arranged their homes together—on their way up the slope towards the stone altar. As they neared the smaller of the two larger buildings on the rise, the young woman finally spoke.

"My brother had to return to Kama pua'a."

"Your brother—" Sam thought for a moment. "Mano. He's your brother?"

"'Ae." Kawehilani nodded. "He is servant to the Pig God. My father was servant before him. Kama pua'a killed him for disobedience, then took Mano in his place."

"Mano is smart. You have a strong brother."

"He says you are going to defeat Kama pua'a. He says that you are the goddess Pele and have the power to make the a'a and pahoehoe flow and kill the Pig God."

"I'm going to try."

"You will do it?"

Sam felt the little hand of the child tighten in hers, saw Kawehilani's look of pleading. "I'll try."

"But you do not belong here. You will want to go home, and we will be left with the Pig God and his cruelty."

"Kawehilani—I've told you I will try to help in any way I can. You're right. I'm not from here. My friends are probably looking for me now—and eventually I will have to return with them. But I believe it would be the right thing to do to try to get rid of this Goa'uld."

Several more steps passed before Kawehilani spoke again. "Soon it will be my turn. Soon I will be called to Halemaumau. Soon Kama pua'a will decide to whom to trade me."

"Kawehilani—" Sam began, but the young woman stopped her.

"I am beautiful. I will be traded for use as a host. Were I stronger, fatter, I would be made a slave. But my mother and father cursed me with beauty, and for that I know I will be made a host. The other girls, they are kept here to breed more children, or taken to Halemaumau to be used by Kama pua'a. I do not wish to be employed like this—for my children to be little more than cattle, my body no finer than a tool."

Sam watched her steadily. She was a beautiful girl. High cheekbones, large caramel-colored eyes, full sculpted lips. Her hair wasn't as coarse as Mahina's—it flowed in inky curls down her back and over her shoulders to mingle with the flowers of her lei. Her skin gleamed with health in the sun, and she moved with the grace Sam had come to expect of this people. In any culture, this girl would be desirable.

They had climbed the rise, past the largest of the buildings to stop several yards away from the heiau. The stone altar sat quiet, unused at the moment, surrounded by wooden bowls of varying sizes and shapes.

"I wish for ohana. I would like to choose amongst the young men here in my village, or from a village beyond. I would like to have a family with no fear of when my children will be taken and sold like pigs to the evil gods beyond the stars. Until now, we have not dared to wish for this, Nohea o na wai. Until you came, we had no hope."

Sam ducked her head to encounter the face of the smaller girl peering up at her with blatant adoration. Her little warm body was pressed to Sam's thigh, and when she smiled, deep dimples creased both of her chubby cheeks. Charmed, Sam couldn't help but smile back.

"I will do what I can."

Kawehilani smiled, then bowed her head a little, reaching out to touch Sam's arm. "E pili mau na pomaika'i ia 'oe," she said, "May you be ever blessed. Mahalo nui loa, Nohea o na wai."

She reached around Sam and disentangled the child's hand from Sam's hand and enclosed it with her own.

"Mahina will be here soon." Kawehilani looked down at the child. "Come, Ani. Hele mai. Let us go help with breakfast."

And with a single backward glance, the girls headed back down the hill, leaving Sam standing alone at the altar.


	7. Scoping the Issues

_Scoping the Issues_

"It looks like some ancient Hawaiian village."

"That's because it _is_ some ancient Hawaiian village, Daniel."

They lay in a copse over looking an enormous clearing, well hidden by the omnipresent foliage of the tropics. Jack and Daniel had climbed nearly to the top and found an optimal location to view the settlement, while Teal'c had ventured even higher up the terrain, to where lush, green lowlands finally became rough volcanic leavings.

Ostensibly, he was providing cover and watching their six.

"Do you see her?"

O'Neill ignored Daniel and continued to scan, holding his scope steady to one eye. Below him, the valley lay open—verdant, thick grass broken only by the scattered groupings of huts and a few well worn trails that ran everywhere. A few hundred yards below him was a stone altar on a level spot on the rise. Just below it, two houses, one considerably larger than the other, were separated by a series of fires and cooking pits. Imu—that's what a cooking pit was called—he remembered going to a luau once in Kailua with a girl he'd met in Waikiki. They'd made such a pit and cooked an entire pig in it with little more than hot stones and banana leaves.

His mouth still watered thinking about that pork. He wondered briefly what was cooking in the imus he could see below him before diverting his attention to the houses.

They didn't seem to be in the same vein as the smaller huts he'd observed further down the slope. These seemed to be meeting places of some sort.

"I don't see any people around." Daniel was squinting off into the distance. "But then, it's hard at this distance."

"Daniel—you've really gotta pick up one of these scopes for yourself."

"Yeah—well—I never think about it until I need one, and when I need one and am thinking about it, there's never a good place around to buy one." He wiggled until he was more comfortable on the ground.

"No Walmart on P3Q-whatever?"

"You're funny, Jack."

"Seriously. You really need equipment for this sort of thing."

"Are you done with that one yet?"

O'Neill thought for a moment, then lowered the scope from his eye. "Carter might have one in her pack."

Daniel glanced over at where the backpack lay, piled ignominiously with their own. Daniel had carried it part of the way up the hill, Teal'c the rest. Even without the burden of the extra weight, Jack's knee had obviously worsened with the climb. Daniel had watched with thinly veiled frustration as the Colonel had lowered himself painfully on the ground just now to establish a spot for recon. Saying something about the injury wouldn't help, however.

He'd decided to bypass that conversation for the present. "I didn't want to dig around in her stuff."

"Somehow, I don't think she'd mind."

"Then you get it."

Jack stared at Daniel, frowning. Finally, he resituated himself on his belly and lifted the scope again. "You want it, you dig it out."

He returned his attentions to the village. "I estimate probably a hundred or so houses and other buildings. And you're right. I don't see any people down there. There's smoke coming out of the fires, so someone's been there recently. Strike that—" He watched as women and children began streaming out of the smaller of the two buildings. They moved in groups, carrying babies, herding older children along as they exited the building and dispersed to other locations. "They look Hawaiian, too. They're not wearing much."

"Indigenous peoples of the South Pacific didn't have cloth of any sort. They made a paper like substance from the inner bark of the wild mulberry tree." Daniel shaded his eyes with his hand in an attempt to see more clearly. "They called it tapa cloth—or kapa cloth—depending on which island chain they were in."

"Yeah, well, they're not wearing much of that, either." He adjusted the scope, focused more tightly on the door way to the smaller of the two larger buildings. "I don't know how they all fit in that building. Why didn't they use the larger one?"

"It could be that they separate themselves according to gender. Many cultures are patriarchal as well as class-based. It's common that for certain rituals, they segregate themselves by hierarchy or sex. It could be that the larger building is only for people of higher rank, or just for the men."

"Hmm." Jack shifted his attention to the larger building. The door was obscured on the far side, not visible to Jack's scope. With the patience learned from many times in just this position, he waited.

It seemed that the rest of the village had resumed their normal activity. Nearly all women and children, the villagers moved with purpose, performing labors made automatic through years of practice. Working in groups or alone, the tasks seemed seamless, the carrying and digging and weaving so ingrained to their fingers that they could work with the palm fronds and chat with the neighbors at the same time.

And everywhere, there were children. Playing, helping, running to and fro with the breathless joy that belonged to the young. For a moment O'Neill lost himself in their innocence, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth, indenting his cheek with that elusive dimple he'd always hated. He'd always felt akin to kids—maybe having something to do with his maturity level tapering off at eleven or so. He could admit it—he was upfront about his failings. In spite of himself, his smile widened.

"Jack—look."

Daniel tugged at his sleeve, and the Colonel swung his gaze back to the larger of the two buildings. He watched as an older woman rounded the back of the building, being aided by a teen-aged girl. She was obviously blind, but comfortable in her movements. She rested one hand on the girl's arm, holding the other one out and tracing the thatched wall of the building with the other. It was a practiced move—she'd done it before. The woman stopped, turned, and beckoned to someone still in the shadow of the thatched roof.

Within seconds, that someone emerged.

Hair gilded blonde instead of darkest black, skin pale instead of burnished, she wended her way around the building and followed the other women up the slope toward the altar. She walked hesitantly, as if stiff and still sore. Even from this distance he could see her bruises, could sense the pain that still rode through her body. He _knew_ her—any team mate knows another well enough to see when things aren't right.

Jack's breath hitched for the slightest instant. He watched as a little girl, bare as the day she was born, hurtled herself into Sam's leg. The major grinned, then reached down and entangled her fingers in the child's hair, and the two of them exchanged a familiar smile.

Cursing, he handed the scope to Daniel.

"She looks fine to me."

"Where?" Daniel grabbed the glass, peered through it, following Jack's indication. "Oh—yeah."

O'Neill scanned the outer perimeters of the village, looking for the men. He'd seen one or two older males—one missing a leg, one wizened and decrepit—but had not seen any younger men—or for that matter, even any guys his own age. That fact sent a tickle up the back of his neck.

He turned his head and lifted his hand, depressing his radio key with his thumb. "Teal'c—you there?"

The reply came immediately. "I am here, O'Neill."

"Have you seen any guys around—any men who look like they belong to this place?" He spoke quietly, lowering his face until it almost touched the earth—dirt made a great muffler.

A pause, then a slight crackle. "I have not. I have pondered upon the significance of that myself."

"Yeah, well it makes me nervous." The Colonel raised his head and scanned the area again. "Daniel, what's up with Carter?"

"She's at the altar thing with the older woman and the two girls." Daniel threw him a look. "Do you want the scope back?"

"Keep it." He found the place himself without the scope and watched as the figures moved around the stone table. He keyed back into Teal'c. "Carter's down there, T—she looks fine. She won't be running any marathons in the near future, but she's safe."

Several minutes lagged before Teal'c crackled back over the radio.

"She may be fine, O'Neill, but we are not."

----OOOOOOO----

The guys had snuck up on him. Gotten the drop. Flown under the radar.

Teal'c couldn't have looked more peeved if he'd tried. He'd tried to warn O'Neill of the men approaching him and Daniel in the dense underbrush, but in the end, he himself had been surrounded, and his decision not to fire upon the men was largely rooted in the last communication he'd had from the Colonel—that these people had not harmed Major Carter.

In the end, he'd surrendered his staff weapon and accompanied them down the hill, to where another contingent of men stood around a now-seated Daniel and Colonel O'Neill.

"You too?" The Colonel had raised his eyebrows and waggled his head. Teal'c's eye-roll didn't help.

"You're with the woman?"

"What woman?"

"The woman of the water—Nohea o na wai." The speaker wasn't one of the brawniest of the seven men—he was compact and powerful, but not any larger than O'Neill. The intricately folded cloth at his waist displayed his body to perfection. He was covered with tattoos—from just below his pectorals to just above his knees. The patterns ranged from large concentric spirals on each side, to dark rows of downward facing triangles down his midsection and thighs. The fact that he'd withstood that kind of pain—coupled with the large wooden weapon he carried—made O'Neill choose his words carefully.

"We call her something—" O'Neill looked at Daniel for back up. "Different."

"Her name is Samantha Carter. She's a member of our team. A scholar and a warrior." Daniel made a move as if to stand, but Tattoo man brandished his weapon. It looked like a large wooden machete, except that where a blade would have been, instead glistened shards of what looked like abalone shells. Daniel sat back down, unwilling to tangle with it.

"She was sent to us by the Mauna. Mano thinks she is Pele, come to deliver us from Kama pua'a. Yet you say she is only a member of your group. Which is it?"

Daniel cast a sideways plea at O'Neill, who shrugged.

"Sam is very wise. I'm sure she can help you with what you need."

"She is also very beautiful."

"Yes." Daniel answered simply. "She is."

"And Pele is beautiful. With hair like fire, and skin like the hidden pearl." He exchanged meaningful looks with the rest of his men before turning back to Daniel. "You say she is only Samantha? That she is only of your people and not a goddess?"

"A god—Oh, wow." Daniel frowned. "I think we need to speak with her. Find out what's going on."

"And you do not wish any other business with our people?"

"No—nothing else. We came to this world for another reason. One which no longer exists." Daniel shook his head, indicating their failed mission.

"But this one is Jaffa." One of the other men gestured at Teal'c. "And he carries with him the weapon of the Pig God."

"I no longer serve the Goa'uld." By now, Teal'c's response to such questions was automatic. "I work to defeat them."

"We got up to the building there on the mountain and were trying to come down when the rain came." O'Neill was rapidly losing whatever patience he had left.

Daniel nodded and continued. "We tried to get down the mountain, but Sam got caught in a flash flood, and—" He trailed off with a meaningless gesture of his hand. "She was lost."

"That is how she came to be on the sand? The waters rose and flowed downward, bringing Nohea with them."

Jack closed his eyes against the image that rose, unwanted in his head. His hand flexed unconsciously, as if trying to hold on to something ephemeral, intangible. He stood, ignoring the multiple weapons being bandied about. "Look. She's on our team. We'd like her back. All we want to do is go home."

The tattooed leader smiled slowly, his intelligent eyes measuring the men in front of him. "I believe you. You are welcome in our kauhale, friends. Come. Hele mai. We will talk together, kukakuka. We will eat. Mai 'ai."

The men turned, heading nimbly down the hill through the underbrush. Only the tattooed man held back, walking alongside SG-1. He made his way with the practice of one intimately familiar with an area, using his wooden weapon to push aside brush and foliage as he went.

At the base of the hill, near the altar, he turned and placed his body in front of his companions. He met each of their eyes in turn.

"Your Sam—our Nohea. She is akamai, is she not?"

"Akamai—" Jack raised his brows, oracticed the word again—_ah-kah-my_—making a rolling gesture with his hand. "Akamai, as in—"

"Clever. She is wise."

"Oh yeah. She's the smartest one of us."

"She is." Daniel nodded in agreement. "Much smarter than the rest of us."

"It is not your kuleana—this task of killing the Pig who would be our god. It is not your responsibility. But Nohea has promised Mano and Tutu Mahina that she would help us."

"Oh?" Jack and Teal'c exchanged a look.

"Soon it will be time for the next Choosing."

"The Choosing."

"When Kama pua'a selects the keiki who will attend him on his heiau on Halemaumau."

O'Neill really didn't like where this was going. He scowled, electing to stare at his boots rather than at the man speaking.

"But the ground has shaken many times in recent days. And smoke has risen from Halemaumau. For many, many weeks the signs have come, and still the mountain does not breathe its fire. Still the lava does not flow. And so Kama pua'a survives."

"And if the volcano were to erupt?" Teal'c asked the question, his low voice slightly menacing.

"The Kama pua'a would die. As the legends have foretold since the time of our first world."

"Jack, I'm guessing that they want Sam to help them force this volcano to erupt and kill the Goa'uld." Daniel's quiet voice filled Jack's right ear. But the Colonel had already guessed what the plan was, and didn't like it.

O'Neill blew out through tense lips. He looked over his shoulder at the clearing, the people, the lush, fecund beauty of the area. When he blinked, he saw the child at Carter's side, the brilliance of her smile as she'd pressed herself against the Major's side. Absolute innocence. That's what that child had embodied.

'The Choosing' sounded like something that didn't need to happen. And damned if he wasn't getting that noble feeling in his gut—the one that usually got him into more trouble than it prevented.

He shook his head, swiped at his face with his hand, but the feeling didn't clear.

"So please. If she is as Pele and can induce the lava to flow, we would be indebted."

"Listen—"

But the man didn't. Instead, he took a step closer to the Colonel, invading his space. "Please. Before the Pig God can take away any more of the keiki. Kokua. Ho'oponopono."

Jack finally met his eyes. Black, piercing, knowing.

"Help us." He said, holding O'Neill's gaze. "Help us make things right."


	8. Storm's Respite

_Storm's Respite_

It hurt, the relief he felt. It ached in his bones, his blood, and lungs.

He'd so prepared himself for the possibility of her death that seeing her alive was like breathing in the force of the sun. Hot, bright, and nearly unbearable.

They'd emerged from the woods into the airy light of the clearing. The heavily tattooed man accompanied them to the stone table on the rise. The rest of the men, evidently deciding that their job was done, passed by the altar and made a beeline for the larger of the two main structures.

It had taken the Colonel a moment to locate her—during their trek down the hill, she'd situated herself on the grass behind the altar, in the shade of a large flowering tree. The child he'd seen earlier knelt at her side. The Major held a segment of a palm frond, trying to weave it. She held up her progress, and the child shook her head and laughed.

O'Neill could only watch her—struck by the intensity of the release that he felt. He'd stopped and allowed Daniel to rush forward, knowing that his eagerness would be interpreted all-too correctly. If there was a question as to his hesitation, he could blame it on his leg.

Daniel had called her name, hurried to where she sat in the grass. She'd raised her head and looked at them, then stood awkwardly, grimacing, before tossing the frond to the side and walking slowly towards them. The smile that had spread across her face had been staggering—a mixture of gratitude and pleasure—especially poignant when O'Neill had thought he'd never see it again.

Daniel caught her up in an enormous, gentle hug. "Sam!" He'd said again, "We thought you'd—well—we didn't know if we'd see you again."

"Guys! It's so good to see you!" She returned his embrace, and then turned to Teal'c.

The Jaffa took her shoulders in his hands, holding her at arm's length, studying her. "You have indeed been much injured, Major Carter. We should return through the Stargate to the SGC immediately."

"No—it's okay, Teal'c. Tutu Mahina has been helping me—and her medicines seem to be very effective." She smiled up at him. "But thank you." Her gaze shifted between Daniel and Teal'c. "Are you guys okay? Are you hurt at all?"

"No." Teal'c answered. "We suffered no ill effects from the flood, other than our concern for you and your safety."

"Except for Jack—he wrenched his leg." Daniel glanced meaningfully over to where O'Neill stood, outside the group.

She turned to the Colonel.

He'd lagged behind, was standing several feet away. He saw her look him over, knew that she'd already noticed him favoring his leg. She pushed past Daniel with a meaningful squeeze on his arm, and approached O'Neill, her demeanor wary, skittish.

"Sir."

"Carter."

She hesitated. "Sir, I know that you must be upset with me. I disobeyed your direct order."

"Teal'c had my back, Major—or would have immediately. Your sacrifice was unnecessary."

"You were slipping, sir."

"I wouldn't have fallen. I didn't fall."

She ducked her head and it hurt somehow that facing him, her expression had gone stony. "I'm sorry."

He regarded her, unsmiling. He told himself that he would have felt this same way had it been Daniel, or Teal'c—or hell, even Siler.

He lied.

Because it was _Carter_, and this dance they'd been doing for these past years had finally bit him in the butt. He'd been too scared this time. Lost too much in the fall over the edge.

"Sir, I—"

"Save it, Carter."

She looked to the side, then tilted her head up towards him, squinting slightly in the sun. "I'm sorry."

"What's important is getting you home and checked out."

She bit her lip and tilted her head further. "Sir, we can't leave these people yet. They're under the power of a Goa'uld."

"I gathered that. That guy with the tattoos told us about him." O'Neill gestured towards the man with his elbow.

"That's Aki—he's Tutu Mahina's son." She looked back over her shoulder. "He's sort of a chief around here."

"We'll talk about it later." O'Neill scanned the area.

Carter nodded, her eyes wide. "I think we can help these people."

He saw Daniel watching him from his place beside Teal'c.

Carter had stopped talking, standing quietly, her fingers idly playing with the knot in the rope at her waist. It reminded him—

"We have your pack."

"You found it?"

"It was in a washout area on the beach."

"Is it intact?"

"Yeah—as far as I could tell. Daniel has it." He paused, watched as she glanced over her shoulder at the other man. "We couldn't find your boots—well, we found one. And some of your BDUs. But they were ruined."

"Yes, well, I guess the water made short work of it all." She nodded again. "I woke up sort of wearing this." She looked down at her make-shift dress. He tried not to follow her gaze.

"You could have died." He blurted out the words, then grimaced and said them again, more quietly. "You could have died, Carter."

"I know that, sir." She looked him straight in the eye, squared her shoulders, set her chin. "And you could have died too."

He waited, flexed his leg, felt it scream at him. "So what's your situation here? These people are friendly, obviously."

"Yes. Mano—he's the Goa'uld's First Prime, although he's not Jaffa—he and some of his men found me and brought me here. They have been nothing but kind. I'm feeling a lot better, sir—maybe Mahina could give you something to help your leg."

"I'll be fine. Just a sprain."

"She has a tea that appears to have analgesic properties. When I first came to, I could barely move. Now I feel almost normal."

But he could see the deep bruising on her shoulders, her neck, and arms—he'd purposefully not looked at her legs below the edge of her garment. Whatever else their treatments had accomplished, she hadn't been able to completely wash the blood out of her hair—when she'd looked down earlier, he'd been able to see a scab around an inch long that had formed where the branch had hit her. She had a mottled purplish area on the side of her head, and he cringed inwardly when he imagined how that could have gotten there. A few tiny cuts marred her right cheek, and on the other side, down near her jaw, an abrasion looked raw and angry on her pale skin.

"Well, regardless of how you feel, Major, you look like hell."

"I can imagine that, sir."

"It'd probably be a good idea to get you back to the SGC for a Doc Fraiser go-over.

"You, too, sir."

He grinned ruefully, because they both knew that wasn't going to happen. Catching her eye, he saw her expression relax, and the hint of a smile graced her mouth. His mood lifted slightly. A movement of Daniel's dragged his attention away, and he watched as the younger man turned and crossed back to join them, Teal'c in his wake.

"Jack, they're concerned we may be trying to take Pele away from them." He'd hushed his voice, keeping the communication within the circle that they'd instinctively made. He raised a brow at Sam. "Do you know what they mean?"

"Yeah—that's kind of a long story."

The Colonel squinted into the sun. Without looking back at his team, he said, "I take it you're Pele?"

Sam bit her lip, perused the men who comprised her team. "Let's go somewhere more private—I'll explain it all to you there."

----OOOOOOO----

Kawehilani led them to the smaller of the two communal eating houses. The two hales were segregated according to nobility and gender—the common women and children ate in the smaller of the two buildings, while the larger one was reserved for those of noble blood, and the rest of the men. By virtue of being the mother of the chief, as well as the most respected woman in the village, Tutu Mahina had a permanent place on a raised platform at the head of the house, on a pallet of finely woven mats. Kawehilani sat lower down, near the back of the hale, her place, and that of her mother, affirmed there by her brother's place as First Prime.

The smaller hale was currently vacant, however, and it offered a private place for conversation. Kawehilani unrolled additional mats and prepared a place for them to sit, leading Tutu Mahina to a spot at Sam's side. The Colonel watched the girl leave, then turned to Carter.

Throwing a look at Mahina, he asked, "Is she kosher?"

"I believe so, sir. And all of the information I have, she does, too."

He considered the blind woman for a few minutes, weighing risks and benefits. Finally, asked, "Then what's going on?"

"Well." Carter thought briefly before beginning. ""The Goa'uld here, Kama pua'a, is legendary from the first world—he must have been the one that brought these people here. He doesn't have any Jaffa. The First Prime that I have met is not inhabited by a symbiote. He doesn't even have a pouch."

"Is he loyal to his god?" Teal'c had lingered at the entrance, listening in on the conversation as he kept watch.

"No, Teal'c. In fact, he's the one that explained that Kama pua'a can be killed, and how."

"Pua'a—doesn't that mean 'pig'?" The colonel looked contemplative.

"Yeah—it does." Carter smiled. "How did you know that?"

"He spent some time in Hawaii many, years ago." Daniel waved a hand over his shoulder. "Many _many_ years ago."

"It wasn't that long ago, Daniel. It was in the early eighties."

"Was it even a state back then?"

"Shut up, Daniel."

But Carter only smiled at their banter before asking, "So you're familiar with the legend?"

"Kama pua'a? No. But I know all about Pele."

"How?"

"I took a piece of hardened lava from a volcano crater once. That's kapu—very bad—there. They say that Pele haunts people who steal from her with bad fortune. I had a string of bad luck, and mailed the lava back. End of story."

"Did it work?" Daniel, oddly intrigued, had a little half smile-half frown on his face.

"Well, let's put it this way. My parachutes have all opened since I got rid of the damned rock."

"Oh. So it worked." Daniel shrugged, returning his attention to Carter.

"The legend that these people tell here is that Pele appeared one day on the island. She was a young woman, and her hair was bathed in red. Kama pua'a fell in love with her, and wanted to marry her, but she refused. He pursued her, and so to get rid of him, she lured him to her volcano and caused an eruption, and the lava swallowed the evil god."

"So what's with this Noeha—"

"_Nohea_, Daniel." O'Neill tossed the comment at the linguist superciliously before looking back at Carter. "Nohea o na wai. Isn't that what that guy—Aki—called you?"

"Woman of the water."

"Because they found you in the water—at the mouth of that river."

Sam nodded. "And because I had blood in my hair, and my skin is white, they extrapolated that I must be Pele in disguise."

"Pele—as in 'controls volcanoes'—Pele?" Daniel shook his head. "That's quite a leap in logic."

Teal'c stood aside as Kawehilani entered the hale. In her arms lay a long, flat basket laden with food—meat, fruit, and a round, wooden bowl filled with that ubiquitous purple paste. Pale slices of a white bread-like substance filled a shallow platter. She made her way across the mats to the group on the floor, knelt with that unconscious grace that all her people seemed to have, and began to distribute the food.

"Poi." The colonel reached into the bowl and dipped his fingers in the paste. "You gotta love poi."

"Isn't it supposed to taste like wall paper glue?" Daniel looked at it suspiciously.

"Only if it's packaged. If it's fresh—" He licked some off his fingers, smiling. "Good stuff."

Sam picked up a slice of the white food. "This is ulu—"

"Breadfruit." The Colonel interrupted, snagging himself a few pieces. "Too bad we don't have any butter. It's great broiled with butter and salt and pepper."

"Did you do anything there except eat?" Daniel had lifted a dab of poi to his lips. He tasted it, considered, and put the rest into his mouth.

"Yeah—do you really want to know what?"

"Kill people?" Daniel said from around another mouthful of poi.

"Only in the periphery."

Daniel grimaced. "Yeah. We'll keep talking food, then."

O'Neill helped himself to some fruit, thanking Kawehilani with a smile when she handed him a small trencher to use as a plate. He watched as she neared Mahina, bent, and whispered in the older woman's ear. Mahina nodded, and rose, and the two quietly left the room.

"So, Carter," O'Neill shifted on the mat. Sitting on the ground was a bear with his leg wrapped up. And the longer he sat still, the more it ached. "About this Pele business. Do they really think you're going to be able to make this volcano erupt?"

"I think so, sir."

"And do _you_ think you can make this volcano erupt?" More comfortable now, he'd reached for some meat, but paused to fix her with a look.

She bit her top lip, catching each man's gaze, before answering. "Yeah. I think I can, sir."

A brief silence fell as they absorbed this pronouncement.

Finally, Daniel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, said, "And how exactly do you plan to do that?"

"Well, I was asking myself the very same thing, Daniel. Until you guys came with my pack."

O'Neill caught on first. He groaned, rolled his eyes, and sighed loudly. "Don't tell me, Carter."

"Well, sir, it was originally your idea."

"We said we wouldn't do it again." He pointed out.

"Unless it was necessary." She countered.

"What?" Daniel shook his head, shifting his attention between the two of them. "Do what again?"

"I believe Major Carter means to utilize the naquadah generator she has within her pack." Teal'c opined from near the doorway. "Much in the same way she attempted to destroy the terra-farming alien ship on P5S-381."

"The planet where we'd taken the Enkarans." Daniel's eyes widened. "You want to create another feedback loop and cause an explosion."

Sam nodded slowly. "I'm no volcanologist, but from what these people are saying, the volcano has been rumbling for weeks—it's due for an eruption."

"And how exactly are you going to time this so that it works right?"

"We'd have to go to Halemaumau and make some observations. Aki has told me that he's seen that the side of the mountain where the altar—or heiau—sits has been expanding. From what I remember from my physical science coursework, isn't that indicative of a build up of gasses and magma?"

Silence fell, ominous, oppressive. Sam looked at each of the men in her team. Teal'c, stoically thoughtful. Daniel, wide-eyed and ambivalent. And the Colonel, his dark eyes narrowed, fuming.

"We have to help these people, sir."

"Can't we just go in undercover and shoot him?"

"He has a personal shield—like Apophis did."

"How'd he find one of those if he's not a system lord?"

"He traded one of these kids for it, sir. A young girl around the age of twelve." Carter waited for that information to sink in before continuing. "Kawehilani said that he brings other Goa'ulds here periodically to choose from amongst the children. They're taken for hosts, or to be made into personal slaves, or worse. Kama pua'a uses this place like a farm—breeding livestock to trade to his fellow Goa'uld for technology or comforts."

O'Neill closed his eyes, and the image of the little girl filled his mind. He saw her smile up at Carter, her full cheeks dimpling, her eyes bright with joy. Saw her running as fast as she could on her chubby legs, black hair bouncing in a riot around her ears.

Saw her being taken as a host, her eyes bright with the flash of Goa'uld.

The back of his throat burned with bile.

He dropped his gaze to his lap, shaking the image away.

"Sir, please."

"Jack, she's right. We can't leave these people alone with this." Daniel urged quietly. "Not when we have the ability to stop it."

The Colonel looked up at his second in command. She was sitting furthest away from him, her legs tucked demurely on one side, her blue eyes clouded with worry.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, sir."

He scratched the back of his neck, passed a hand over the stubble on his face. Grimly, without humor, he nodded.

"Then let's get this done."


	9. Questions

_Questions_

Sam watched as Tutu Mahina walked in the door, carrying a familiar looking basket under one arm, and a shallow wooden dish in the other.

Preparations for the noon meal had forced them back to the hale where Sam had been living. The Colonel's hesitant movement had been noted by Mahina, and she had, in her own way, won a completely non-verbal argument about the treatment of O'Neill's injuries. Sam wished that she possessed the older woman's abilities in this regard—she'd get a lot more accomplished if she could manage her SO that well.

So he currently sat on the pallet of mats on which she'd been sleeping. And he was currently not wearing any pants. His current expression had degraded from a look of stalwart endurance into one of furied embarrassment.

Carter wondered how he managed that. The two emotions usually didn't exist quite so concurrently.

He'd been allowed to keep his underwear on—that little bit of dignity had been preserved for him at least.

Tutu Mahina and Kawehilani had accompanied them back to the hale, the older woman reaching expectantly for Carter's arm as they'd passed through the opening of the eating house. The Colonel had been walking on Sam's right. He'd stumbled on uneven ground and fallen—Sam had caught him before he'd hit the ground.

Mahina had instantly honed in on the fact that his leg had been hurt, and in a terse, hastily interpreted conversation through Kawehilani, she'd hustled him into the hale, straightforwardly figured out his belt, holster, and pants closures, and yanked the whole of it down to rest on the tops of his boots. Sam had tried to leave, but stern looks from both Mahina and the younger woman had stopped her. So, after being handed the holster and weapon, she'd sat as far away from the action, trying to give the Colonel as much privacy as possible.

Kawehilani had figured out the boot ties, and as she'd pulled them off, she'd handed them to Carter, who had set them near the hale's entrance. The socks had come next, then the ragged bandage, and finally the pants. These, Carter had folded neatly and set next to her on the floor. The younger woman had then disappeared out the door, leaving the Major and O'Neill alone in the hale with Mahina.

"Carter, what's she doing?"

Sam looked up and watched as Mahina ran her hands up and down the Colonel's leg. He was leaning back uncomfortably, balancing on his hands.

"Looks to me like she's trying to see how badly you're injured, sir."

"How is she going to see that?"

"Tutu Mahina is a very skilled healer. I don't think that her blindness hinders her abilities at all. It's been barely a day since the flood, and I already feel better." She noticed the way his eyebrow rose in blatant skepticism. "Even though I don't _look_ better."

"You look like hell."

"So you've said, sir."

"Well, it's true."

"You look really great yourself, sir." The eyebrow went even further skyward, and Sam felt herself redden slightly. "Not that I meant—I mean—I—"

"Yes, well." The Colonel watched as Mahina reached into the omnipresent basket and withdrew what looked like a gourd . She pulled a stopper out of it and shook some of the contents into her hand. It wasn't the same paste she'd applied to Sam's feet—this was more of a liquid than a paste, and, as she rubbed it briskly between her own hands, Sam noticed it smelled a lot worse.

"What's this?"

"I don't know, sir, it's new."

O'Neill flinched when Mahina laid her hands on her leg, one on either side of his knee. The liquid felt hot on his skin, and as her hands started to move, he frowned. "Okay—that's weird."

"What?"

"Just feels weird."

"Oh."

The Colonel's lips flattened, his eyes narrowed. "Kinda hurts."

"Do you want me to see if I can stop her?"

But the Colonel waved a hand at her, concentrating on his leg. Sam could tell that the pain intensified with the movements of the older woman's hands. He breathed shallowly, in short pants. The muscles in his arms and on his other thigh were tense, distended, his face drawn. She looked away, trying to concentrate on something meaningless. She knew all about how the Colonel hated not just being in pain, but being observed to be in pain.

When he could speak again, he let out a deep groan. "Damn, that hurts."

"I'm sorry sir."

"Carter—I'm going to say this only one more time. Stop apologizing. This isn't your fault."

"I can't help but feel differently about that."

"Major." He spoke sharply, gasping as Mahina manipulated his knee. "Gah—this is—really painful."

The older woman sat back on her heels, rubbing her hands together. Reaching out, she grasped the shallow dish and handed it to him, watching as he drank it down in one, long, swallow.

She stood in a single motion, glared at the Colonel and motioned for him to stay still. Then she pointed at Sam, gestured towards the mats she sat upon. "Ho'opohaku."

Mahina then stared down at the Colonel again, and pointed at his nose. "Noho pono." Sweeping the basket up off the floor, she left.

"So I guess we stay here."

Sam ducked her head, concentrating on her hands. Mahina had hidden the majority of him with her body. Now he was just sitting there in front of her—in his underwear, for heaven's sake—his knee garish and swollen in the light filtering in through the hale's door.

"We'll need to check in tomorrow." He spoke quietly.

"I know. I don't have a radio or a GDO."

"I figured. We didn't find your tactical vest or weapon."

"But you found the pack. That's the important thing."

He waited, willing her to look at him. When it was obvious that she wouldn't, he spoke again. "Carter."

She peered up at him from under bangs still bloody, and an unholy mess. "Sir?"

"Hammond will expect us back tomorrow. We had two days up, two days back."

"Yes."

"We could send Daniel and Teal'c to radio in. They can explain that we've found something here and will return later than planned."

"Okay."

"Major—do you really think that this can be done?"

She nodded. "I think so."

"I need more than that. If we're going to go into harm's way."

She finally raised her face fully to him. She'd been thinking about this since the day before, when Mano had first asked it of her. She knew little about volcanoes except that the eruptions were caused by build-ups of gasses and pressure. She had asked Aki about this particular volcano during their walk to the morning meal, before he'd been pulled away by the group of men he'd led out of the village.

"Halemaumau is where Kama pua'a lives. There's a heiau—or an altar—on the side of the volcano. Aki says it's directly below a vent. These volcanoes are young—and they're not the ones filled with smoke and ash like St. Helens. It's going to be lots of lava, maybe even slow flowing. We'll have to plan well."

"It's not on this island then. Is it at least close?"

"He said a few hours by canoe—or wa'a kaulua—I think that's like a catamaran."

"It is. A double-hulled catamaran."

"And we'd have to plant the reactor, and time the feedback loop correctly."

"And then get off the island."

She bit her lip. After a long while, she nodded. "Yes."

"That was a hell of a hesitation, Carter."

"I just haven't figured out that part yet, sir."

"Why not?"

"The explosion is going to be big. I'm not sure where to put it so that it will direct the flow. My guess is that lava will eat right through the housing of the reactor and destroy it, so we can't place it anywhere in the actual lava stream. I don't want to endanger anything else—just this Goa'uld. And I'd have to see the place to really know the best possible strategy."

"Well, without seeing the actual mountain, we really can't make those kinds of plans. We're going to have to go and check it out." O'Neill shifted his weight forward, shaking the kinks out of his arms.

She hesitated again. "Sir—are you really sure that you're okay with this?"

"I'm not okay with the one part that you haven't talked about yet."

She frowned.

"You're the bait, right? That's the part that I don't like." He rubbed at his temples with his fingertips. "You feel fuzzy, Carter?"

"Fuzzy?"

"You know—like things aren't in focus."

She considered. "No."

"Okay—never mind. We were saying something about bait."

Sam nodded slowly. "Yes. According to the legend—"

"We don't know anything about this guy."

"We know he's bad."

"They're _all_ bad, Carter."

"But these people can't fight against him."

The Colonel looked over at where she sat still, her legs tucked up under her again, that dress riding high on her thighs. She looked like some warrior queen rather than like an Air Force Major. But then, labels never had stuck really well to her. O'Neill closed his eyes, wondering if the concoction he'd drunk was affecting his thinking, or if it was just the absurdity of the situation—being here in an ancient hut, in his skivvies, with her dressed in little more than a towel. He'd tried to ignore it, but his resolve had waned considerably.

"Sir? Are you all right?" He heard her voice as if she were speaking through a tunnel. "Sir?"

Sam stood, and then set aside the clothes she'd been holding and crossed to him.

"Sir?"

"Tired." He mumbled it out, and then starting listing to his right.

She caught him just as he dropped. Supporting his head with one hand, one shoulder with the other, she lowered him to the pallet, shifting him so that most of his body was cushioned.

With the backs of her fingers, she checked the side of his cheek for fever, but felt none. He snored softly, and pressed his face into her hand.

Sam didn't know what she'd been expecting when she'd been reunited with them. Daniel's hug and Teal'c quiet welcome had felt comfortable, normal, to her, but she hadn't been expecting the Colonel's obvious anger with her. She didn't know what it meant. She'd tried desperately over the past years not to over-think things—that's where the problems had arisen—when she'd left the casually mild flirtatious banter behind and let herself become more deeply invested. But they couldn't think about that portion of their relationship. If they'd allowed anything more to develop, there would have been consequences. And she wasn't quite ready to confront that—the possibility of ending the comfortable team relationship they shared in favor of a more meaningful, and volatile, personal understanding.

It had only been put into words once—this _whatever_ that they shared—and it had been months ago—stated briefly once and left behind in pursuit of other goals. So while her decision on that bridge had been tactically the best one possible, she wondered if his ire had been piqued by other considerations.

She jumped at a sound behind her, and turned her head to see Mahina standing in the doorway, her hand outstretched. "Kaia i ka hiamoe. Kane hiamoe. Hele mai." She wiggled her fingers towards herself. "Wikiwiki, Nohea."

Sam cast one last look at the Colonel and then stood and padded softly towards the door. Mahina took Sam's hand and fitted it around her arm, leading her out of the hale and into the noon-day sun.


	10. Preparations

_Preparations_

It was approaching dark when O'Neill emerged from the hale.

The people of the village had gathered in the clearing, on mats or on the grass, massive amounts of food piled in wooden trenchers and hollowed-out gourds. The smells that filled the air made his mouth water—kalua pig, roasted fish, and fruits. Bowls filled with opihi and poi accompanied the main dishes. Steamed sweet potato and stick-like sections of sugar cane piled atop long, flat wooden trays. He was suddenly, and intensely hungry.

Standing momentarily at the edge of the clearing, he looked for his team. He searched the assembled throng, finally spotting a hint of gold within the sea of dark—Carter had bent her head close to the child sitting in her lap, and the little girl—O'Neill searched for and found her name—Ani—was playing some sort of game with the Major's fingers. The Major's attention wasn't on her hands, however, she and Daniel actively discussed something even while the archaeologist shoveled food into his mouth with his fingers. Teal'c lounged nearby, his back braced against a palm tree, empty platters stacked next to him on the grass. It looked like he was trying to kelnorim, but then he might have just eaten himself into oblivion. You never knew.

The Colonel tested his leg on the uneven ground, and was surprised to find it stronger—and not as stiff—as it had been before. Even without the bandage, he could walk without limping. He set out across the field towards his team.

As he approached, the Major looked up at him, concerned. "How are you feeling, sir?"

"Better." He gestured in her direction. "I see you found your BDUs."

"I had an extra set in my pack." She grinned, then, one of her heart stopping smiles that had become too infrequent lately. "I see you found your pants."

He looked down at his legs, at his bare feet, gave a hint of a self-effacing grin. "Yeah—but my boots are still wet. I'm hoping they dry out soon."

Daniel swallowed and looked up at the Colonel. "Teal'c and I were going to leave after the meal and 'Gate through to the SGC."

"Why?" A touch on Jack's elbow alerted him to a girl slightly older than Kawehilani, standing at his side. Head bowed, she held a platter of food out to him. He took it with a soft, "Mahalo," and she glided away as quietly as she'd come.

"Well, we've been talking with Aki, and he says that the wind is wrong for the canoes." Daniel indicated the air with a twirl of his finger. "It would take us a long time to get there even with the men rowing—too long, he thinks, to beat an eruption."

"Why are we trying to force an eruption if the volcano's going to blow anyway?" The Colonel looked around, found a likely spot, and sat, balancing the tray in one hand and himself with the other.

Carter nodded. "I thought about that, too, sir." She turned her full attention to him. "We'll have to focus the flow—force an eruption in a specific path—rather than just let the mountain do what it wants to. That way, we can lure the Goa'uld to a set location and somehow secure him so that he is overcome with the lava. His shield was created by the same Goa'uld scientists that created Heru'ur's personal protective field. Simple bullets or arrows won't penetrate it."

"How are you going to secure him?"

She bit her lip and looked down at Ani's finger game. "I don't know, sir. That's the part I haven't figured out, yet."

"There seems to be a lot that you haven't figured out yet."

"Yes, sir."

Daniel broke in. "Jack, we've been talking about this while you've been—out. We're planning on requesting the Zodiacs that the Marines used on that mission to M2N-884. We're thinking Hammond will permit their use in this case."

O'Neill considered, then nodded. He swallowed the bite of fish he'd taken and picked up a bit of sweet potato. "That's actually a good idea. Zodiacs are a lot faster than outriggers."

"And the inflatable boats can be carried through the 'Gate. If we plan on meeting near the 'Gate at a specific time, we can come through, inflate the boats, attach the motors, then leave together."

"Who's planning on going?"

"Aki, some of his men, and us." Daniel, apparently finally full, set aside his tray and stood. "What other equipment do we need?"

"Boots." The Colonel stated without hesitation. "Mine aren't going to dry out anytime soon. Carter? Do you have necessary equipment for this op?"

"I've got the generator. I've given Daniel a list of a few things." She looked at O'Neill. "Other than that—" Her voice tapered off, and wasn't able to hold back a half-shrug.

O'Neill studied each of his team in turn. Carter, her face drawn, concerned, Daniel , full of optimistic gusto, and Teal'c, stoic and steadfast. He knew that the job needed to be done—but he was concerned about the particulars. He'd felt this many times in the past years—and the desire to make things better for the random people they'd run across butted up frequently against the stark reality of the accomplishment of that action. He wasn't a philanthropist. He wasn't even a particularly charitable man—wasn't the over-feeling individual that Daniel was, the kind hearted person he'd come to know in Carter, or the freedom fighter Teal'c had become. He saw things in the bleak clarity of right and wrong. It would be right to free these people of their oppression at the hands of the Goa'uld, wrong to leave them in bondage.

He sighed, rubbed a hand over his stubbled cheeks. "Okay. 'Gate home and get the supplies. We'll meet you at the 'Gate in—" He flipped back the cover of his watch. "Five hours?"

Daniel glanced at his own watch. "If we leave directly after that, we'll get to Halemaumau around dawn."

"Will that give you enough time to figure out what you're missing, Carter?"

"We may have to wait until we're on the island to finalize things."

O'Neill sat thoughtfully. "I don't like unknowns. You know me and surprises."

"I mean no disrespect, sir, but we have them on every mission." Carter spoke quietly, her voice slightly muffled by the child on her lap. She looked up at him, caught his eye. "I feel confident we can overcome them."

He regarded her with an intensity he normally didn't allow himself. Still bruised, still battered looking, her enthusiasm hadn't been dimmed a bit. Carter was one of those rare people that he knew who truly _believed_. In her mission, her ability, if not always in herself. She knew her stated goals and pursued them, even as she doubted herself. The dichotomy wasn't lost on him—he had long since recognized the complicated nature of his second in command.

"You're still the bait?" He tried to keep the distaste he felt out of his voice, knew he failed.

"Yes, sir."

"Do we know what is expected? How you'll bait him?"

"Mahina has provided some sort of ceremonial clothing—some oil I'm supposed to wear, and some decorative elements—leis, that sort of thing. Apparently it's the custom to periodically bring women to the heiau for Kama pua'a. It's Mano's job."

"And you're sure he's on board with the ruse?"

"Yes." She wrapped an arm around the girl in her lap and hugged, then gently helped her to her feet and scooted the girl away. Ani cast a disappointed look at the Colonel before galloping off down the rise to disappear into the crowd below. "Daniel. Teal'c—I'll walk with you part way. Kawehilani was going to show me a place where I could—freshen up." She turned back towards the Colonel. "With your permission, sir."

Jack nodded. "By all means, Major. Go. Freshen."

As he lifted another bit of fish to his mouth, the earth wobbled, then started to shake. O'Neill dropped a hand to the grass, bracing himself. The Major did the same, and Teal'c rolled out from under his tree, coming to rest on his knees in the clear. Daniel flattened himself against the grass, riding the tremor out flat on his back.

It didn't last long, but the shaking was substantial. A look down the hill showed people gathering in groups—and even in the dark, their worry played across their faces, their voices rose in a sound of collective concern.

"Earthquake?" The Colonel placed his food on the ground next to him, intrigued at the way the poi shook with the motion of the earth. "This is new."

"Not really, sir." Carter shook her head. "This is the third time this afternoon. You missed the first two because you were sleeping. This one wasn't as strong, so it might have been an aftershock. That's why they're eating in the grass instead of in the common rooms. My guess is that they will sleep out here, too."

"Any guesses on how big?"

"I'm not certain, but I asked Aki about it, and he said that they've been more frequent lately—and gaining in strength. They haven't been this strong in a generation. At least, that's what Mahina indicated."

"That's how it felt when Kilauea erupted in eighty-three, too." He looked through the evening off towards the ocean. "Only there was ash in the air, then."

Daniel stood carefully, feet spread, knees slightly bent. "We'd better go." Teal'c joined him, inclining his head towards the Colonel and the Sam. "Five hours." Daniel tapped his watch, his eyebrows raised. "At the 'Gate?"

The Colonel cast one long look at the people in the clearing below before answering. "Five hours."

----OOOOOOO----

Sam had bathed in a spring near the village. Fresh water from the mountain drained down several falls to pool in a stone basin around twelve feet deep, twenty five or so across. A contingent of other, older women from the village had accompanied her, her mission having been passed, as was the custom, from person to person, until the entire population knew she planned to rid them of Kama pua'a. More than once, the name "Pele" had been whispered, and looks of hope had passed between them, and towards Sam. From their demeanor, the group had been chosen for the specific purpose of preparing her for the mission, and Sam had been humbled, although a little confused, at their attentions.

She'd entered the frigid water and ducked herself under, using her hands to gently loosen the dried blood and mud still in her hair. One of the women—Puanani?—had extended a palm full of nectar squeezed from a nearby pod-like flower. "Awapuhi. Holoi." She'd said, and mimed rubbing it on her head. Sam had followed the directions, and found the thick pulp to be soothing—almost like a suds-less shampoo. Her hair had felt wonderfully smooth when she'd rinsed it out, and the wound hadn't itched nearly as much as before.

She'd watched the other women pull handfuls of soft sand from the sides of the basin, scrubbing their bodies with it. Sam had followed suit, then stood on the rocks, feeling bashful and a little raw, as they had helped to rub generous portions of coconut oil into her skin. Chattering rapidly in the moonlight, they had then wrapped her in a robe similar to her first make-shift dress. She'd fingered the kapa cloth, touched the bright feathers and cowry shells that served as its ornaments, and then tried not to feel self conscious when the one of the women pulled it lower, to rest just below Carter's breasts as the other women wore theirs.

The woman Puanani had reached into her basket and withdrawn a wide, expansive lei, or haku, and placed it over Sam's shoulders. It concealed as much in front as a bathing suit top would have, but still Sam felt terribly exposed. A smaller haku came next, and another woman fit it to Sam's head, tying it off in back with thin strips of dried palm leaves. They tied more haku around her wrists and ankles, rubbed more oil in any skin still visible, and stepped back en masse to survey their handiwork.

Lacking a mirror, Carter didn't know what she looked like, but presumed it was acceptable by the hopeful expression common to the women around her.

"He Pele." Puanani extended a hand towards Sam. The other women had repeated the words, then one by one approached her, grasping her shoulders, and meeting her forehead with their own. Each murmured something in their own melodic, lyric tongue, and Sam could make out the words, "Mahalo", 'Malama pono", and "Maika'i pomaika'i."

Walking back towards the village, Sam asked Puanani what the words meant.

_Thank you._

_Be careful._

_Good luck._

----OOOOOOO----

The boats sped through the water, shooting streams of spray behind. The ocean rose around them in choppy waves—the winds having arisen in the hours since night fell. The moon rode low in the sky, encased in clouds, limning the water with a silvery sheen that made it almost seem like snow.

Sam sat at the back of the Zodiac, in her BDUs, having waited until she and the Colonel had rounded a bend before slipping into the forest for a quick change. She'd felt hopelessly awkward in the kapa skirt and haku leis, and even knowing the necessity of the costume for later in the mission, wasn't willing to spend the entire journey to Halemaumau basically half-dressed. It wasn't true what they said, she mused, when in Rome—you felt naked.

So she watched as the island in front of them grew larger, its looming mass seeming more real as each wave hit the front of the inflatable. She hadn't expected it to be so big—hadn't thought about the fact that the island was, though yet being formed, still large and impressive, with lush green forests on the opposite side from the low volcanic dome.

They rounded the island, heading towards its south side, where Halemaumau spread out across the entire south and west portions of the island. After several minutes, the lead boat slowed, then quieted, dropping into an uneasy stall in the rough sea. Sam's boat came up alongside, close enough for the occupants to see each other, yet too far to converse.

Daniel and Teal'c had returned from the SGC not only with the boats, but Marines to go with them. SG-12 had prepared the inflatable crafts in mere minutes, and two of them currently sat—one at each helm—the other on the boats' prows, armed heavily.

Carter and O'Neill had made it to the 'Gate first, along with their contingent of silent, burly men. Aki had conscripted three others—Keone and Kaipo, brothers who looked enough alike to be twins, and Ikaika, a huge bulk of a man with long hair pulled into a tight knot at his nape. They currently sat uneasily on the sides of the first inflatable, gripping tightly to the straps on the sides of the craft. The Colonel and Teal'c had joined Sam in the second boat, seated up front, with Daniel holding on to the strap next to Sam.

As the waves lapped against the side of the craft, the Colonel stood, gripping a night vision scope. They sat around a hundred yards off shore, and counted on the fact that the Goa'uld wouldn't expect them and had no reliable guard to prevent an attack.

"I don't see any reinforcements up there." He spoke quietly, in a voice that wouldn't carry.

"Aki did say that Mano would make certain that our landing would go unnoticed." Teal'c held out his hand for the scope, lifting it to his eye as soon as O'Neill slapped it in.

"What we really need is a FLIR." O'Neill turned to the marine at the helm. "You didn't happen to bring one, did you?"

Captain Casey grinned. "Dr. Jackson told me to bring the whole shebang, sir." He reached into a cargo sack that had been lashed near the helm, found a plastic box, and handed it to O'Neill. "That case has the camera. Screen's attached."

Within a minute, he had scanned the shore with the specialized camera. "Well, Aki was right. No movement, no guards. No nothing. If there was anything giving off a heat signature up there, this would see it."

Teal'c lowered the night vision scope. "I believe it will be possible to land on shore and conceal the boats in that direction." He pointed towards a copse of palm trees.

The Colonel folded the screen back into the camera and pushed it back in its foam nest. "I'm going to take this with me, okay, Casey?"

"Sure thing, sir."

O'Neill made his way to the back of the boat where Carter and Daniel sat. He perched on the side of the inflatable, steadying himself with his hands. "It's clear. We move up, land, leave the boats on shore with SG-12 behind as guards. Take the locals with us. Carter, you'll stay as you are until we're on shore. When the time comes, you can change into the ceremonial clothes. Until then—here." He handed her his side arm, butt first. "Let's try not to lose that one. It's one of my favorites."

Carter nodded, reaching for the weapon. Daniel and Teal'c hadn't bothered bringing her a replacement weapon. There would be no place for her to conceal it as she met with the Goa'uld. She secured the Colonel's gun in a pocket on her leg. "The heiau should be up that slope, towards the summit." The dark shapes were becoming more familiar. The moon had lowered in the sky, and a faint band of pink skimmed the horizon. "We should land as soon as possible, sir." She met his eye. "Before the sun rises."

"Okay." He surveyed his team. "We good on details?"

"What details there are." Daniel focused on the pack at his feet. "I've got the generator. Carter's already prepared the loop. All we have to do is figure out where and when."

"I'm thinking lava tube." The Colonel turned his head and scanned the shoreline again. "We should be able to find a cooled one up close to the summit. Stick the generator in there, get out, and let it blow."

"First we have to find that tube." The major bit her lip. "And make sure it's near the heiau."

The enormity of the task weighed heavily on them, and for just a moment they sat silently, riding the waves as they undulated beneath the craft.

Finally, O'Neill spoke. "So let's find it." He turned to Casey, motioned for him to land. "Saddle up, campers, we've got a mountain to ignite."


	11. Complications

_Complications_

Sam Carter thought that she'd gotten used to this feeling.

She'd been flying planes since she was a teenager, riding high powered motorcycles, driving fast cars, and dating men who'd given her father fits for years. Beneath an exterior that mimicked the proverbial girl next door, she was, in truth, a thrill seeker.

That was why she hadn't been able to stay away from the service. It wasn't that she was following in her father's footsteps, but rather forging her own—in leather boots while carrying a really big gun.

She knew that others found her to be beautiful—although she honestly didn't see it. She had looked at herself in the mirror often enough to see the basics—the blue eyes, inherited from her mother, the wide line of her forehead and the strong jaw. She knew that her dates had often concentrated on things south of her chin more than what was above her eyebrows—and really she couldn't blame them. She knew that her tendency to prattle on about all things scientific caused most guys to glaze over like a Sunday ham. And some had drooled.

But they didn't know this about her—that more than the excitement of the ride, of the flight, of the discovery, what she craved—indeed what she _needed_ in her life—was a purpose.

Most people didn't live with a goal anymore—either they concentrated on just scraping whatever joy they could out of their existence or they had long since abandoned hope of such exultation and had stopped trying. Sam Carter wasn't capable of that. She had to be useful, somehow.

That she had landed in this job, with this team, was the greatest joy of her life.

And over the past four-odd years, she'd experienced things she never would have dreamed about just five years before—met people, seen things—that would have sent lesser mortals running off to hide in their own delusions until the cows came home. Sam Carter held those moments close to her soul—they fulfilled her like nothing else could.

At least that's what she told herself in moments like this.

----OOOOOOO----

Within the murky rose light of the morning, they had landed the boats, pulling them up the beach and into the deep green density of the forest. They had assumed that the sand had been dark due to the night, but in reality it wasn't sand at all, but an entire beach of tiny, smooth, black stones. Tide after tide of heavy ocean waters had pulverized the volcanic rock into a deep, soft layer of pebbles stretching across the entire shoreline.

Aki and his men had vaulted out whilst still in the shallows of the bay, slinging their hardwood machete-like weapons on their backs with long, well-worn lengths of the rope used in the area. Cutting through the water with strong, practiced strokes, they swam to and then mounted the beach, spreading out into the forest so common for the planet—that combination of palms and older, denser woods that seemed so odd a mix.

The SG-12 marines had landed the crafts silently, rowing the last hundred or so feet, then hopping over the sides with soft splashes in the water. It had taken mere moments to drag the boats quietly into the woods, moments more for the entire contingent to be bunkered down, quietly discussing strategy.

They had landed on the south-western portion of the island—on a small stretch of land that had not as of yet been retaken by the more current lava flows. Volcanoes needed time to recuperate between major eruptions—time to build up their gasses and magma to such a level as would force it upward and out of the mantle of the earth. Sam had surveyed the area with the night vision scope as they had neared the island—she could see the garish bulge of earth beyond the oasis of vegetation where the eruption would be most likely. Aki had told her beforehand that the heiau sat just below that bulge, on a sacred piece of land that Kama pua'a had claimed as his home.

Halemaumau was most likely a shield volcano, like Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Smaller and less violent than conic volcanoes, shield volcanoes were flatter, smoother than their more explosive cousins. They had more of a propensity to create lava tubes, as well, and the lava, the viscous pahoehoe variety, created long, sleek lines of flow—rather than the highly destructive pyroclastic rivers expected with volcanoes such as Mt. St. Helen's and Vesuvius.

SG-12 had stayed behind to guard the boats and secure their escape route and SG-1 had split up—Ikaika and Aki had traveled with Sam and Daniel up the slope towards the summit, while Teal'c and O'Neill, and the brothers had ventured out across the sand, searching for entrances to lava tubes closer to the sea. One of the brothers, Kaipo, had said that he'd found a lava tube near the beach directly below the heiau at one point, and their goal was to find it.

Sam and Daniel had rounded the western most point of green land quickly, then climbed up into the interior of the island. Raw, rugged, the forest had seemed inhospitable and vast, until suddenly it had ended, a thin line of scorched trees bordering a freeway-width stretch of hardened lava flow.

Halemaumau sat just beyond—the mountain bulbous, black, and still. Magnificent in the early day, it shone like polished onyx.

"I don't see a main cone." Daniel said as he lowered himself to the ground. He lay on his stomach and raised a small pair of binoculars, purloined from a storage closet at the SGC.

"It's a shield volcano, Daniel, there won't be any cone."

"What's the difference between a regular volcano and a shield volcano?" Daniel shaded his eyes, searching up and down the length of the terrain.

"Shield volcanoes can erupt from anywhere along the length of the mountain. The magma runs underneath the entire ridge, rather than gathering in a single chamber and exploding in one fell swoop."

"So all of that lava flow there—"

"Is a hardened crust and it's possible that there is either flowing magma directly below it, or conversely that there are cooled lava tubes that can be as large as the tunnel coming into Cheyenne Mountain."

"Hardened crust—does that mean that it could break?"

"Yeah—you have to be sort of careful."

"So if this lava tube pans out—what exactly is going to happen?

"Well, what I'm hoping is that a cooled tube that far down the mountain has been flowed over more recently—that new flow is sandwiched between it and the crust. So if magma is now running on top or near that old tube, then the force of the explosion below the earth will force the magma up above the earth. Mano did say that the personal force shield that this Goa'uld uses is impenetrable to weapons. I'm not sure it can withstand a lava flow."

"And you're going to tie him up—or what?" Daniel frowned, shaking his head in confusion. "I just don't get it. Why don't we just plant the bomb at his heiau or temple or whatever and let it blow him up?"

"Mano says that there are other people there—other villagers and people brought in from other planets. If they're innocent, they don't deserve to be destroyed that way."

Daniel didn't answer that. He raised his binoculars again. After a few minutes he asked, "And you're sure this will work and you'll be able to get out of there?"

"Possibly." Sam bit her lip. "I think so. But we're treading on some awfully thin science."

"Yes, well. You've blown up a lot of things, Sam. I believe you can explode this guy, too."

Sam lowered her head. A crackle on the radio caught her attention, and she turned her head to listen.

"Carter—Daniel."

"Yes, sir."

"Aki was right. There's a large tube down here. It looks like it goes part way up the mountain. We're going to spelunk a bit."

"Yes, sir." She bit her lip before adding, "Be careful, sir."

----OOOOOOO----

They had used a laser system developed by the SGC to measure the length of the tunnel. It was a low, easy hike up into the mountain, cool and damp. The tunnel extended more than 1700 feet into the island before ending in room-sized cavern that dripped with stalactites. Above the main floor of the cave, O'Neill could see a series of windows—places in the flow above that had hardened in thinner layers. One of these windows had broken through, and a faint dusting of light entered from the exterior of the cave. Although they couldn't tell exactly how steep their climb had been, it hadn't been much—O'Neill guessed that this cave was basically below the main temple structure—their course had been, for the most part, straight—if they left the generator there, the detonation could possibly produce enough pressure above for whatever lava there was above to burst through the surface.

And if not, it would have to be close enough.

Too close, if anyone asked him. He'd been avoiding thinking about the problems with this little plan of Carter's—trusting that he would be able to step in if it became a complete cluster. But darned if her plan wasn't actually panning out.

Teal'c said as much on their way out of the tube.

"Yeah, Teal'c, I know."

"Are you not pleased with the progression of events?"

"I just don't like using one of my team as the lure." He'd pocketed the laser device and they were following the native brothers out of the cave.

"Do you not trust Major Carter to perform her task well?"

"No—it's not that—I think she can do it. I just can also think of a million things that can and probably will go wrong here."

Teal'c merely hiked in silence, waiting for the explanation sure to come.

"We don't know that the generator will work—and she's working off of legend here—Pele was a legendary goddess in the Pacific."

One of the brothers turned—Jack thought it was Keone. His dark eyes, shadowed in the dimness of the cave, were troubled. "Nohea—this woman you call Sam. She _is_ Pele."

"She's acting a part." The Colonel drew up even with the brothers. "She's taking on a persona in order to lure this Goa'uld to where we need him in order to kill him."

"No." The dark head shook once, twice, before fixing again in O'Neill's direction. "I was there when we found her. She had been brought down from the mauna by the water, her hair stained red, her body luminous and white. She healed with the speed of the Gods, she possesses the knowledge of the Gods, she embodies the beauty of the Gods. She is the Goddess Pele—she will kill Kama pua'a with the fire from the mountain."

"Fire from the mountain." O'Neill repeated. "Look—it's not easy to do this stuff. Making a volcano erupt isn't exactly easy—"

"The people have faith, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c spoke quietly. "How that faith is served is not as important as that the faith exists."

"How can you say that, T—you've been fighting against false gods now for how long?"

"But Major Carter has not claimed to be anything other than what she is. The people ascribe to her the qualities of this Pele. That she can deliver them is certain—how that deliverance occurs is inconsequential."

O'Neill sighed, moving forward again towards the mouth of the cave.

The rest of the men followed behind him in silence.

----OOOOOOO----

So the plan had been set. Daniel and Teal'c would return to the cave with the generator. The Colonel and the brothers Keone and Kaipo would round the rise and emerge above the heiau and Kama pua'a's residence. Their task would be corralling the villagers and other innocents from the area, hopefully before the generator's feedback loop expired, and the mountain blew. They would retreat to the opposite side of the summit, coming down on the side of the island where the vegetation grew wild and untouched by flowing lava.

Aki and Ikaika were charged with the honor of delivering Sam up as sacrifice.

They'd gathered near the summit for a last planning session, making final decisions while Sam had retreated into the dense woods to change back into the native garb.

She'd emerged from the forest, redressed in the kapa skirt and haku lei. She had rubbed the oil into her skin again, and tied on the wrist and ankle ornaments. Aki took the haku headband from her hands and tied it on for her, then motioned for the tiny container full of oil, adding more to Sam's back, his dark hands sharply focused against the smooth paleness of Sam's skin.

Jack had looked away—had been trying to avoid looking at his second at all in the ceremonial clothing. Even though all that was visible was that slim expanse of back and her toned shoulders, the images he'd been carrying since she'd first appeared after "freshening up" were ones he'd be haunted with for years to come. He'd forced himself in past years to see her as a soldier—period. But seeing her this way—he was forced to remember that she was not only a woman, but a sensual woman.

And memories stirred of an all-too-brief time underground when she'd been wearing other native clothing, her hair cropped close to her head. Only in that place, he'd been allowed to touch her—and the oblivion of a mind stamp and the forgetting of true self hadn't been as much of a burden as the return to reality, knowing what she felt like—tasted like—and having to forget it.

He closed his eyes, his mind, his soul to the vision.

He heard her say that she was ready, heard himself ask if she had the knife he'd given her before she'd gone into the forest to change. Saw her nod and motion to her thigh, where she'd lashed the weapon in its sheath. Aki bound her wrists loosely in front of her, and the Colonel couldn't help but look at her, meet her eyes.

The contact was brief, yet profound. Their glance held that instant too long—where "good luck" became "return to me". Her blue eyes bathed him in a mixture of assurance and determination, even while she bit at her lower lip self-consciously, and a slight shift in her position drew the wide haku lei to one side to hint at the swell below her collarbone.

His mouth went dry. He nodded, looked away, then perused the rest of the group.

"So, we're set on the particulars?" His voice sounded rough even to him.

"We know what we're doing, Jack." Daniel adjusted the pack on his back. "And we'll be within radio distance, so call with any changes or concerns."

One last look passed around the group—there was really not much more to say—everyone knew their job, knew the dangers.

"Then let's go."

----OOOOOOO----

Aki and Ikaika led her across the lava flows. Under her bare feet, the cooled lava felt almost unnaturally smooth. They neared the temple, and approached the heiau. Sam allowed them to bind her feet when they reached the altar, and she leaned against it as they headed up the hill towards the open, airy palace Kama pua'a had built further up on the slope.

They were to bring him to her, and she was supposed to lure him into position, then try to—what—seduce him?—so that she could somehow bind him. That part of the operation still existed only in some hazy detail that Sam wasn't quite sure of. She brought her bound hands up to her waist, and bent back the kapa cloth to see her watch—Daniel and Teal'c would be in the cave by now. Aki had the radio hidden somewhere on him—that technology would be harder to explain on a captive.

She waited, perusing the scenery around her. The heiau sat on a slope, unencumbered by any vegetation, with a perfect view out into the ocean. Above her, dark clouds interspersed with a clear blue sky, creating a filtered sunlight that made everything look clean, and clear. She turned briefly, awkwardly, to look down to where the lava flow turned into pebbles, the dark beach stretched like an asphalt highway into the ocean.

There was little sound—the waves crashing on the beach and out beyond, into the first set of coral breakers sounded like little more than distant splashing.

She turned back around to look at the palace again, and steeled herself as she sensed movement.

Mano appeared first, his face a mask of doubt. He saw Sam, and she saw him fight against showing recognition.

Directly behind him came a huge man—draped in robes of red and gold silk decorated with feathers. His pasty face had once been handsome—his body had once been honed. But beneath the robes, loose folds of skin moved as he walked, his chins quavered as he moved. His eyes were little more than pinpoints in a face that had long since outgrown itself. He was holding a large piece of meat still on a bone in one hand. Grease dripped down his hand to fall off of his wrist.

He stopped when he saw her, took a bite of the meat and chewed with his mouth open. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he gestured at her with the meat. His eyes flashed. "Is this my new sacrifice, Mano?"

"Yes, my lord Kama pua'a."

"She is indeed beautiful." He bit off another chunk, chewing slowly as he neared the heiau.

Sam swallowed her revulsion, struggled to keep her expression neutral.

"And how fitting it is to have not one but two new wahines for my collection." He had reached the altar, raising his empty hand to clumsily caress Sam's face. His hand was cold, clammy, and soft. Secured tightly to his wrist was a gold device that she guessed was the personal shield.

Mano's jaw clenched, his brow furrowed. He passed her a look that made the bottom sink out of her stomach.

"Yes. She will be a grand addition." Kama pua'a smiled, lips glistened with grease and juice. "And my friends will be pleased to be entertained by so many beautiful women."

Sam cast a look at Aki, who hung back from the group, his expression carefully hooded.

_Friends? _The word beat through her body like a klaxon.

"My friends will be most satisfied. To have this one, and the girl. Fine women who will breed strong sons on behalf of their Gods." He grinned again, licked at some of the grease that he dripped down his wrist. "Not that I care about the sons—I have no need of the brats. It's the breeding that's entertainment." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "But now they have arrived, so come, Mano. Bring this one to the palace. Prepare her for our guests."

From somewhere off in the distance, she heard it, knew immediately what the sound was. Her eyes closed involuntarily, slowly, as she realized that her plan—their plan—had just been blown straight to Hell.

Carter looked up and to the west, where gleaming dully silver in the sun, an Al'Kesh descended over the ocean, heading directly towards them—towards Halemaumau.

_She'd gotten used to this feeling, she'd thought—this terror mixed with adrenaline, this horrifying sinking in her gut that told her that things were going to get worse before they got any better. This was normal to her now._

_At least that's what she told herself in moments like this. _


	12. Discoveries

_Discoveries_

"What was that?" O'Neill turned to his companions, but they were staring after the craft in awe, their faces twin masks of wonder. "Dammit." The Colonel reached for his radio and depressed the call button. "Daniel—Teal'c. Come in."

"Yeah, Jack, was that an Al'Kesh that just flew over you?" Daniel's voice had a hint of panic in it.

"I'm thinking so—can you see it from where you are?"

"No-we're at the mouth of the cave. We were just about to go in when we saw the Al'Kesh. What's it doing here?"

"I don't know, Daniel. I'll find out. Go ahead and plant the generator and I'll radio back when I have info."

O'Neill pulled the scope out of his vest pocket and raised it to his eye. He was down on the mountain, still in position behind the Palace, hidden in some scrubby shrubs that had managed to eke their way out of the volcanic soil. He'd been able to get a pretty good look at the place before the Al'Kesh had flown over and taken a dump on his day.

The building itself was not as impressive as the view. It seemed to be little more than a glorified Hale—a wide, sprawling central residence surrounded on all sides by extensive covered lanai—or patios. It was white—he wouldn't hazard a guess at the manner of construction, being obviously not of the same materials the other Goa'uld favored. Entering the place wouldn't be difficult—the snakehead didn't seem to be too concerned about security. The First Prime Mano had been telling the truth there—Jack had yet to see either Jaffa or any kind of guard.

Hell, he'd yet to see a single soul either enter or leave the huge building. He lowered the scope, scanned the sky again, but failed to see where the Al'kesh had gone. Swearing quietly, he scratched at the rough growth on his face with one hand, closing the scope up with the other.

Kaipo and Keone communicated intimately between themselves before one of them approached O'Neill and lowered himself to lie on the ground next to him.

"Colonel."

"Yeah?" Jack's voice gritted out uncomfortably.

"We must ask Mano what is happening. He will advise us what to do next."

"My guess is that Mano has other things on his mind right now. He's probably up to his neck in Jaffa." O'Neill flipped open and raised the scope again. "Real Jaffa, too. Not the fake kind."

"Mano will tell us where Nohea is—where she has been taken. And now a new demon has arrived. He is here for a Choosing. Should we stand aside and allow him to take our keiki? Our wahine?" Keone (or was it Kaipo?) pushed himself easily up on arms that rivaled Teal'c's. "We will not allow more of our wahine to be used by this pua'a. Or by his friends."

O'Neill took a deep breath and rolled, then sat up. Knees bent, he rested his forearms on them, hands loose. His posture was easy on purpose—he needed these men to believe he had things under control—couldn't risk tipping Kama pua'a off until he knew who else they were dealing with.

"Look—guys. I know that this is tough for you. I know that you have lost family members—children. We came through the 'Gate a few days ago and threw the place into chaos. I understand that." He paused, meeting each man in the eye, making certain he was understood. "But we can't go in there without a plan—that ship that just passed over has more power than you can imagine."

"Not more power than the Mountain. Halemaumau holds the mana to destroy the Pig God. Nohea can—"

"Sam can't. Not now. Not with this new threat. With that ship, this Pig God and his friend can just take off and escape. No matter what the legend says, that ship changes things."

The brothers exchanged a meaningful glance. The brother still standing had removed the machete from his back and stood there, swinging it lightly. Here, in the light of the early afternoon, the entirety of the weapon was displayed. Polished wood, it had been studded on both edges of the blade with what looked like shark teeth. The handle wasn't blunt like that of a machete, either—a pommel of sorts below the grip had been extended with a seven or eight inch long wooden spike, sharpened to a lethal degree. O'Neill was reminded again that these people, while preparing for peace, still lived in a world where they had to constantly guard against a specific threat. And that threat couldn't be killed—not with weapons made like this—wooden, with spare bits of sharpened materials shoved into the sides.

He closed his eyes in thought, yet again scratched at the stubble on his cheeks. "Dammit." He muttered again. He flipped back the cover of his watch and checked the time, then fingered the radio on his shoulder again. "Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"How long will this generator take to overload?"

"A few minutes. Tops. And Sam warned me that the remote might not work well inside the lava tube."

"Have you set it up?"

"Yeah. Although it took a while because the cave was so dark. We're on our way out now."

"How big an explosion we looking at?"

"Big." Daniel paused, and Jack waited for him to continue his thought. "Although Sam did say that it's a much smaller generator than the one that we'd left with Enkarans. Probably only a tenth the explosive power."

Jack frowned, cocking his head to one side. Something Daniel had said before had caught his attention. "Dark? When Teal'c and I were in there earlier, it was pretty light. There must have been a window in the top crust."

"Well, any window in there has been closed or covered. It was pitch black in there. We used some snap lights and my flashlight to set up the generator."

O'Neill considered again before depressing the switch. "Hang tight, Daniel. I'll contact you again in ten minutes."

He rose, keeping his profile low behind the scrub. Motioning for the brothers to follow, he moved over the low rise, around the back end of the mountain. Suddenly, all vegetation ceased, and Jack found himself on an exposed section of cooled lava. He lowered himself again, creeping in a quicktime army crawl up the smooth flow until he'd reached the peak.

Over the top of the mountain he could see the opposite side of the palace. Down and towards his right, the Al'Kesh had landed, looking huge and precarious on the sloping side of the volcano. Activity surrounded the ship—Jaffa swarmed around, loading and unloading huge containers of what Jack assumed to be supplies.

Standing on the lanai facing the ship stood a large man wearing red and yellow robes. He looked out of place within the sea of healthy, honed bodies. He was porcine, flabby, and pasty—sweating even with the breeze that floated up across the side of the volcano and ruffled the fabric around his legs.

Kama pua'a.

Jack flicked the scope up to his eye again. He didn't really need to see the local snake—he needed to know who the guest snake was. He scanned the area, counted over twenty Jaffa, a dozen or more locals. He didn't see Carter—or any other of the village women. He didn't see any women at all, as a matter of fact.

The Pig God turned at a noise behind him, and O'Neill watched as a well dressed man emerged from the palace. He was tall, fit, muscular, and he wore only a short skirt around his hips, heavily decorated with gold. His feet were encased in what Sara used to call Jesus sandals—flimsy soles with straps wrapping around the feet and up his calves. His coloring matched the two men now flanking O'Neill on the slope of Halemaumau—coffee colored skin with long black hair that reached nearly to his waist. He wore a hand device on his right hand, but his left wrist was bare. Jack hoped that meant he didn't have a personal shield.

Jack figured they'd found their other Goa'uld.

The Goa'uld passed Kama pua'a by, stepping off the lanai and towards his Al'Kesh. One Jaffa broke from the crowd and neared him, bowing his head submissively before answering a question posed to him. The snake didn't like the answer, and the Jaffa found himself at the wrong end of the hand device. He fell on his knees as the beam hit him, and Jack could hear his shout of pain.

From his vantage point, Jack couldn't see the Goa'uld's face. He watched as the Jaffa collapsed onto the ground, watched as, with a flick of his wrist, the snakehead commanded others to remove their fallen comrade. When the Goa'uld turned, however, Jack caught a glimpse of his face—handsome, chiseled, cold. He'd smiled as he'd adjusted the device on his hand, and the Colonel knew—_knew_—that he'd enjoyed killing the Jaffa.

And Carter was in that palace with the bastard, with only a knife for protection.

----OOOOOOO----

Mano led her into the palace, through the main rooms and into a back corridor. Aki had made his way around the side of the structure and met them where the hallway reached what seemed to be a dead end. The First Prime pulled aside what had seemed to be a decorative curtain to reveal a door, however, and he'd opened it wide enough for all three of them to hurry through. The room they passed into was small, with doors in either side wall. Mano closed the door behind them with a soft 'click'.

"I did not expect this new arrival. He is no god I have seen before." Aki reached under the side of his kapa garment and retrieved Sam's radio. He held it out to her. "You must call your friends. Tell them that the plan has changed."

"I know." Sam grimaced, nodded, and took the radio. "I saw the Al'Kesh. They did, too." She knew that the Colonel would already have amended their previous plan. She turned to Mano. "Do you know who this Goa'uld is?"

"I have seen him only once. He came long ago to trade for keiki wahine." Mano frowned. "He prefers young girls—with just a hint of womanhood. He calls himself Ku."

"Ku—God of all, ruler of heaven and earth." Aki breathed heavily. "Very powerful. For wahine, his heiau is kapu."

"And that means?" She shook her head, betraying her lack of knowledge.

Both men turned to Sam, but Mano was the one who answered. "For him, wahine are not important—only vessels to be used to breed warriors, to sate desires. His women are not ohana—not his family as are the wahine of our village. They are not allowed at his altar. His women are merely a means to his own ends."

"Does he live on this planet?"

"No. His temple is far beyond the stars. He has only come in his ship—never through the Stargate."

"His planet might not have a 'Gate." Sam thought out loud. She closed her eyes and focused on the rest of what Kama pua'a had said at the heiau. "Who is this other girl Kama pua'a referred to?"

"The other god retrieved her from the village himself. She most likely waits in the women's room where the Chosen are taken for preparation." He shook his head. "I had not heard of her until just then. The other women will be preparing her for her introduction to her new lord."

Sam glanced at the radio, then slipped it under the waist of her skirt, where it made a slight bulge. "When will the introduction be? What happens from here? From what we'd discussed before, I thought that I would be able to speak directly to him—"

"I do not know, Nohea o na wai." Mano turned and led them to one of the other doors in the room. "You will stay in this room with the others. I will come to get you when it is time." He took her face in his hands, lowering his head so that his forehead met hers. Eyes closed, he pressed gently. "E kala mai ia'u." His voice stirred quietly. "I am sorry I have brought you here. I was certain that the mountain had sent us our salvation in you. Now it seems that we will be the means of your destruction."

"Don't worry." Sam drew away, reached a hand up and gripped his arm. "We'll figure this out."

He captured her gaze, "It must be soon. Ku will not stay for long, and he cannot be allowed to leave with more of our people."

Carter acknowledged him with a nod. "I know."

Mano opened the door and handed her inside. He then turned her roughly and met her eyes with a brief, sharp promise to return soon. With a rush of wind as the door closed, he was gone.

Sam turned to survey the room. Large, square, and white, it reminded her of a scene in a movie she'd once seen where a European girl had been sold into slavery in a harem. Long low couches sat scattered about, and in the center of the room, a sunken pool continuously aerated water with a simple spouted waterfall in the center. Long curtains in the centers of the side walls obscured what Sam assumed would be entrances to private rooms, and more curtains shaded windows high on the back walls. The only thing relieving the pure, unadulterated white was the deep bronze of the room's other occupants' skin, and the deep, rich tones of their hair.

At first glance, she thought that they were simply lounging about, but then she noticed their chains. Fixed at their ankles or wrists, each woman was secured somehow to the room itself—to the leg of their divan chair, or to a ring in the wall. She made a quick count of them—fourteen. They all stared at her, unmoving, unspeaking.

The woman closest to the door stood and moved towards her. Tall, and lush, the woman was ripe in pregnancy, her kapa cloth skirt falling awkwardly over the bulk of her belly. She wore more of the mulberry cloth over her shoulder, and her hair cascaded down her back in a neat black fall. Her chain was attached at her ankle, with the other end hooked around a ring in the wall. She stopped a few feet away from Sam, standing quietly, uncertainly, one hand resting atop her swollen abdomen.

"I'm Sam." Carter extended a hand to her, but the woman merely looked at it before returning her focus to Sam's face. "Mano calls me Nohea o na wai."

"Mano calls you Pele." The woman corrected, her voice resonating through the room. Sam felt rather than saw the other women sitting up, leaning in to hear the conversation. "He said that you would come to free us."

"I'm hoping to help, yes." Carter looked around at the other women. As they stood, moved, shifted, she saw that virtually all of them were in various stages of pregnancy. It wasn't a harem—it was a brood mare stable. Sam's stomach churned. She moved into the room, making eye contact with the women as she went. "I need information—I need your help. A new girl was brought today. From the village?"

The women cast long looks at each other, and then one motioned to Sam. "A'e." She flicked her hand towards herself in what was a universal gesture for 'come here'. Pointing towards a low sofa in the corner, she indicated a space between it and the back wall. "Come—she is here."

Sam crossed to the sofa, saw the girl curled up in the tiny space. She sat with her back to the wall, legs drawn up to her chest. She was hugging her knees with long, thin arms, the chains on her wrists making odd, cruel marks on her skin. Head bent, all that was visible was her hair. She made no noise, not even in breathing.

Sam reached out and touched her knee. "Hi," she began, "I'm Sam."

"Hele aku." The girl's voice was muffled, broken. "Hele aku."

"I want to try to get you out of here, but you have to help me do that." She placed a hand on the side of the girl's head, stroking her hair in what she hoped was a soothing manner. "Who are you?"

The girl raised her face, and Sam's heart sank.

Kawehilani.

Kama pua'a was trading away the younger sister of his First Prime.


	13. The Chosen

_The Chosen_

She'd radioed while they had crept back behind the brush on the other side of the palace. Kaipo and Keone had listened as Carter relayed her status—told of the women she'd been left with—and the girl who was meant to be given to Ku.

The anger on the two men's faces had been immediate, and fierce. O'Neill's revulsion at the thought of the young girl with the ruthless Goa'uld was nothing in comparison to what he knew these two were thinking. Their faces, normally open, bright, and willing, had turned stony, and the friendly expression that he'd grown used to from them had been replaced by a stark resolve.

These men were capable of much, much more than they'd let on. As they traversed the scrub brush behind the summit of Halemaumau, their movements had lost all of the relaxed readiness they'd carried before and had edged into tight preparedness.

They were ready to fight—ready and willing to kill.

O'Neill had seen it often enough to know. Some men, men of war—those for whom fighting had become second nature—could transition from laid-back easiness to efficiently lethal in mere moments. He had to admit that he hadn't expected this of these two men—having assumed them to be more brawn than ability.

They reached their original surveillance spot and O'Neill fell back down on his stomach and raised the scope while the other men retreated back into the woods.

Carter had described to him during their radio communication the room in the palace where she was being held, and he surveyed the most likely point in the building from key points in her account. He counted doors and windows once, and then twice, fixing in his mind where the room where Carter was situated lay in relation to the rest of the palace.

The light was starting to yellow—the first step towards twilight. O'Neill noticed that the shadows lay longer on the ground, too, and flipped a look towards the sun. Well past midday, the time would benefit them. Dark provided more cover than surveillance would—especially if the Goa'ulds weren't expecting either company or challenge.

He processed the situation, making a list of tasks in his head and then immediately prioritizing them. First in line was getting the women out of the building, getting the innocents out of the way before obliterating the threats. He did a quick mental inventory of the items that they had both on their persons and in the boats. Nothing useful for popping locks, but then, his second in command had demonstrated a remarkable propensity for opening things heretofore sealed. He'd once asked her where she'd picked up the ability, but she'd just smiled and shrugged.

Behind, him, he heard Keone and Kaipo speaking quietly in their native tongue. He turned and scooted off the rise and joined them at the treeline, where they crouched out of sight. As he neared, they regarded him with dark, hard eyes.

"Colonel." Kaipo began, his tone low. "Did Daniel not say that the cave was now dark?"

"He did." Jack nodded. "The window in the surface must have been covered or blocked somehow."

They looked at each other and then returned their gaze to the Colonel. "This ship that Ku arrived in." Keone gestured in the vague direction of where the Al'Kesh now sat on the other side of the palace. "Could it not have set itself on the window?"

O'Neill considered. "Yeah." He nodded. "It could."

"So, if Daniel and Teal'c make this device explode, then would it not destroy the ship?"

Jack looked steadily at both men before inclining his head. "Yes. It would. But it will also destroy half the mountain. When this thing blows, it's going to be big."

"But it would destroy the ship."

"Anybody within a mile radius of that detonation is going to die." He lowered himself to the ground next to them. "All we originally wanted to do was to plant the thing low in the cave and hopefully force the volcano to erupt."

"As does Pele in the legend."

"I guess—but we really hadn't intended to destroy half the mountain—and that's what this explosion is going to do—especially if that ship and its power source falls into it. That's going to take the explosion from big to humongous."

"And yet it has been foretold in the legend that Pele does defeat Kama pua'a."

O'Neill's lips narrowed as she canted his to one side. "Whatever. You'll have to excuse me if I don't believe much in legends." He glanced over his shoulder towards the palace, but could only see a hint of it over the rise. "But we have to get the women out of that building. First order of business."

"Nohea said that the women are chained."

"Yes."

"How, then, do they relieve themselves?"

Jack shrugged. "Hell if I know."

"There must be someone who allows them to take care of such matters—someone with a means of opening the chains."

The colonel looked at the two men with greater respect. "Mano?"

"He has never spoken of his duties to any of us." Kaipo's tone reeked of disapproval. O'Neill knew that there was a chasm there that would not be crossed lightly. "He only comes for the Choosing, takes our children and women, and returns here to this island. He serves this Pig."

Jack chose his next words carefully. "There may be circumstances here that you don't know about. I've run across a lot of these Goa'ulds in my time. They're not good people."

"There is no excuse for enslaving your own people—your own children."

Keone cast a look at his brother before laying a hand on his shoulder. "Kaipo speaks the truth, but it doesn't matter right now. We must get the wahine out of the palace."

Jack raised an eyebrow at the two men. "This isn't going to affect the mission, right?" He shifted his gaze between the two of them before nodding back towards the palace. "You can sort out what you think about Mano after we've gotten the women, and my team, out of here."

Kaipo and Keone again communicated with a look—in that way they had—before they turned back to O'Neill and nodded. "A'e. Hele mai."

O'Neill held up a hand and reached for his radio. Depressing the button, he spoke quietly. "Carter, come in."

After a long pause, she answered. "Yes sir."

"What's your status?"

"I've been trying to get the chains off, but haven't been having much success, sir. As far as I can tell, there aren't any actual locks."

"Keone and Kaipo think that there must be someone there outside the room who can open them. Isn't it normal for women in their condition to need to—go—a lot?"

"Stand by." He heard her click off the radio and waited, hating the silence, until her voice crackled over it again. "Apparantly there's some sort of midwife caretaker. I'll see if we can find her and get her to release the women, sir."

"We're coming in. Let's see if we can get everyone out so it's not necessary to blow up this mountain, shall we?"

"Yes, sir."

"O'Neill out." He stowed the device back on its patch on his shoulder, then snicked the safety off his weapon. Keone and Kaipo held ready behind them, their wooden weapons with their lethally sharp blades held in front of them. "Come on, guys." He raised himself up onto his knees, and then into a painful crouch.

And then, because of where he was, because of who he was trying to release, he borrowed a phrase from the men behind him before heading to the rise. "Hele mai. Let's go."

They crept over the rise and silently down the hill to the back lanai of the palace. Jack sidestepped onto the raised planking of the patio, surveying the area with both weapon and eyesight. But if one thing was consistent about this snake, it was his lack of guard. Nobody stopped them as they softstepped along the planks towards a concealed door in a shadowed portion of the lanai.

The Colonel passed a hand over the smooth door, his fingertips searching for any sign of a handle, but felt nothing. He ran his fingers around the side of the door and felt the slight indentation of a marking of some sort. He grinned when he realized what it was.

The mark was in the shape of a fishhook.

He fit his fingers within the hook and pressed, and the door swung open. Silently, weapons ready, the three men filed into the hall.

----OOOOOOO----

Carter heard a noise outside the main door, and cast a confused look towards the back of the room.

She'd been expecting the Colonel for several minutes, kept expecting to see him coming in that rear door—she moved away from the main entrance, to where Kawehilani sat, small and motionless, on her couch.

Sam sat next to the young girl and took her hand. Kawehilani returned the grip—the first voluntary motion she'd made since Sam had coaxed her out from behind the sofa earlier. Leaning down, Sam squeezed her fingers and whispered, "It'll be okay. We're going to be fine."

But just then, the main door swung silently open, and in stepped an older native woman, followed by Mano and the two Goa'ulds. The woman stepped to one side as the men entered, bowing and retreating back to a place behind the door. When the older woman looked at her companions, Carter caught an expression of loathing in her eye.

The chained women immediately bent in awkward bows, their swollen shapes prohibiting them from truly appearing obeisant. Sam didn't follow suit. She merely sat, unflinching, the haku around her shoulders rising and falling slightly as she struggled to keep her breathing as normal as possible.

Kama pua'a heaved through the door with a rustle of silk. His robes swung around his girth, and Sam could feel the air stir as he neared. He held out a hand, proudly indicating his possessions.

"So you see, Ku, these are my stock. They carry within them future great warriors, future great hosts." He shrugged indolently. "They are useful, for now, and seem to breed well enough, when the right stud is used." His corpulent face sneered into a smile. "And used often—for they are a passionate people."

The lean Goa'uld stepped forward, frankly surveying the women before him. His eyes lit briefly on Kawehilani. "There you are, child. I had wondered where they put you." He stepped towards her as if to touch her, but stopped when he noticed Carter.

"And who is this?" His eyes grew heavy, his face fell into an expression of something Sam couldn't name—darker than interest—something inhuman and covetous. "Why have you not told me of this one, Kama pua'a?" He reached out and gripped her face in one strong, chiseled hand. "She is not of these people—this world."

"No, she's not. I have not yet had an opportunity to examine her myself. She arrived at the same time you did."

"She is beautiful and strong." The Goa'uld called Ku ran his thumb along her chin, forcing her mouth open. He inserted a finger between her lip and gum, taking a look at her teeth, as one would a dog or horse. "Not so young, perhaps. But for the right Goa'uld, a fine vessel."

Carter jerked her head away from the Goa'uld's hand, wiping deliberately at her mouth with the back of her hand. She couldn't—wouldn't—control the sneer that marked her face.

The Goa'uld Ku looked surprised, then pleased. "Spirit—you have spirit!" He grinned wide, the smile distorting his handsome face into something beyond evil. He leaned his face closer, and Sam could smell him—musky, sweet , a cloying odor that wasn't unpleasant, yet made her want to vomit. His voice deepened further into its distinctive Goa'ulded resonance. "Do you know what the best thing about a spirited mount is?"

Carter met his eyes with a look of sheer repugnance, head straight, shoulders strong. "When it bucks off its rider?"

The Goa'uld laughed without humor. His nostril twitched, and Carter caught the beginnings of a flash in his eye. "When it is broken." His hand had crept up her arm, and she felt his fingers and the hand device dig into her skin. "And I believe you would break more easily than you think."

Sam averted her eyes, refused to show the pain he was inflicting. Beside her, she could feel Kawehilani start to tremble, so she summoned up some bravado and yanked her arm free. "You don't frighten me."

Ku laughed outright then, and his hand snaked out to grip the back of her head, tangling tightly in her hair. "I think I would like this one instead, Kama pua'a." He licked his lips, frowning down at Sam. "It would amuse me to teach her some obedience."

The other Goa'uld hefted himself forward, closer to where Ku and Sam stood deadlocked. He looked her over, his beady gaze pausing on her side, where beneath the haku the swell of her breast was displayed. He traced her hip with sausage-like fingers, then dismissed her with a wave of his meaty hand. "Take her, I suppose, if you like. But in exchange for one like this, I would expect something of great value."

"Of course." Ku's smile was back, the one that made Sam's blood run cold. With a final tug at her hair, he stepped aside and then pushed her forwards with a sharp slap to the back of her head. She stumbled slightly and stopped where Mano stood by the door.

The big First Prime had not so much as looked at her, nor at his sister. His eyes downcast, he had maintained a position of humility throughout the exchange. Sam doubted that Kawehilani was even aware that he was present—her eyes had never left her own feet.

Sam stopped next to Mano, careful not betray him with a look, an intimation. She kept her eyes forward, towards the door, and waited, knowing that, for all her brave words, she was essentially unarmed and alone. But it would be worth it if she could be taken in the place of the girl—because on the other side of that rear door, she knew—was _certain_—that the Colonel and the brothers from the village waited to take the other women to safety.

Behind her, she heard Ku turn, felt him pause. She twisted enough to watch as he shook his long veil of hair back over his shoulder, smoothing it with a supercilious vanity that disgusted her. He swaggered a short distance into the room, peering in interest first at one woman, then at another. Their figures seemed to intrigue him, and she bit back a protest as he placed a splayed hand on the distended belly of one woman, his face an unreadable mask.

When he finally turned away, Carter saw the blatant relief of the woman as she lowered herself on shaking limbs to her seat. She placed her own hand protectively where his had been, as if to assure the child within her.

Ku made his way back towards the entrance, pausing next to Kawehilani. He lifted her chin, stared into her vacant eyes, thrust his fingers cruelly into her long mane of hair. She cried out when he twisted the mass, and he smiled again.

"On second thought, Kama pua'a." He traced her cheek with a single, gold rimmed finger. Enjoyed it as she flinched, as her wide, dark eyes glistened with tears. "I will take this one as well."


	14. Plan B

_Plan B_

They'd been separated.

Sam had fought it, grabbing Kawehilani's arm and holding tight even as one of Ku's Jaffa hit her across the head with the side of his Zat. Light and pain had burst through her—and she had the sinking suspicion that the wound on her scalp had reopened. The younger girl hadn't screamed—for which Carter felt undeservedly proud—but the look of terror on her face as another Jaffa had lifted her and carried her down the hall would swim in Carter's memory for the rest of her life.

The Jaffa who had hit Sam then lifted her with a beefy around her waist. She'd fought—although she knew it had been weak—the pain radiating through her head had precluded either thought or reason. She'd found herself unceremoniously dumped in a room, where she'd lain for a few precious minutes fighting to regain control over the pain in her head.

And a few moments was all she'd had before Kama pua'a had joined her, his robes shushing his way past where she lay as he crossed to stand on the other side of the room.

Carter had forced her eyes open, painfully surveying the place.

It was a chamber much like the women's quarters, minus the fountain. Wide and expansive, the room was white, with large swaths of red and gold color in drapes, and carpeting, and upon the vast bed in the center of the room. She raised herself on her arms, willing them not to shake as she pushed herself up onto her knees. With a self consciousness that she despised in herself, she reset the haku lei, covering herself, even as she lifted her chin towards the Goa'uld.

He stood near the foot of the bed, absently rubbing the strap on his left arm. Sam quickly took it in—the personal shield device was the key to her escape—the reason she was here.

"I know who you are."

Sam looked up at him, but didn't say anything.

"My First Prime has referred to you as Nohea o na wai. A common enough name. But I sense that you have been inhabited by a Goa'uld."

She watched as he fiddled with the gold device on his fat right hand, loosening it slightly, preparing it. She tested her limbs, knowing she could outrun this huge man if she needed to. She found herself casting a quick look behind her, to where the door stood, unguarded from the inside.

She was alone with the Pig God.

"You'll find that we are being given privacy—so that we may get to know each other better." He smiled, his mouth making little more than a crease in his round face. "Because I believe that you have much to offer—something more than your body."

"What could I have that you might want?" Sam steadied her eyes, her focus on the Goa'uld. "I have nothing. You see that I'm completely at your disposal."

The crease in the Goa'uld's face deepened. "I believe that you have much you could tell me." He stepped closer, apparently satisfied with the devices on his wrists. "You have been inhabited by a Goa'uld, have you not? Only you are not blended, at the moment. It's quite the mystery."

He drew closer still, until she could smell him, and his voluminous robes filled her area of vision. One hand reached down and grasped at her face, turning it up to meet his gaze. "Only I am a God, and therefore I can solve the mystery of who you are. You have come through the Stargate. You have once been blended. You must be working with the Tok'ra."

She allowed her eyes to close partway, hoping she looked weaker than she actually felt. Her only hope lay in his thinking that she was here by herself—and then she could wait for the cavalry to arrive. She needed to focus on parting the Goa'uld from his personal shield. Once she'd done that, the legendary lava wouldn't need to take him out—a well aimed slice of her knife would do that just as well.

"I'm not of the Tok'ra. I came here looking for the secrets of the Ancients on a mountain on the other island. I was caught in a flash flood and brought down river. Mano found me and thought that I might be a pleasing servant for you. A suitable sacrifice." She forced her voice to sound subservient. "He told me that if I gave you the pleasure you seek, if I gratified you, I would be a highly praised servant to the Lord Kama pua'a."

"And will you?" His hand lowered to take the haku off her head, letting it drop to the floor next to her. He fingered the tips of her hair, tsk-ing softly at the wound on her head. She saw his eyes take in the still-faint bruising on her shoulders, her face. The evidences of her previous injury that Mahina's medicines and ointments hadn't been able to fully erase. "Because believe me when I say that further disobedience will result in worse injury than this. Worse than you've already suffered."

"If you'll let me prove myself," Sam forced herself to bow at the waist, hands running down her thighs to rest on the ground. "I will please you."

Kama pua'a bent gracelessly, grasping her upper arm. "Then come and show me what you have to offer. You seem to be a woman of experience. Ku wants you for himself, but I can still choose to keep you."

Sam stood, aided by his moist hands. She allowed him to remove the haku at her wrists, forced back the revulsion as he stepped around her, touching random parts of her body. His soft, inelegant hands ran down her spine, touched her shoulders, measured the breadth of her hips, and he edged two fingers under the haku at her side, testing the weight of her breast. When he had completed his circle around her, he smiled down at her again, with real regret.

"It is indeed unfortunate that you did not arrive sooner. You are too old to be of much use to me as a breeder. But that does not mean that you cannot give me some small solace." He took a step backward. "Disrobe. I would have you now."

Sam couldn't move. For all of her prior bravado, she found herself unable to obey this order, unable to expose herself. The fact that the knife on her thigh would disprove everything she'd said weighed heavily on her—the Goa'uld would know that she was not an innocent, a sacrifice once he saw it.

"Or are you indeed what is whispered? A Tok'ra operative working under the name Pele?" The Goa'uld spread his hands. "I know the legends that the slaves here pass amongst themselves. Just because I choose not to travel amongst the stars waging useless war with my own kind does not mean that I am a fool." His eyes flashed briefly, brilliantly, before he nodded again to her. "It is either one or the other, is it not? Nohea or Pele. Sacrifice or enemy."

Carter swallowed hard, breathing in short pants through her nose. With a troubled resolve, she reached up and grasped the heavy haku around her neck, pulling it off over her head, discarding it. She lowered her arms to her sides, standing partially exposed, the kapa cloth skirt skimming her hips and reaching only to her knees. She summoned up her courage and stepped closer to the Goa'uld, watched him leer at her, his lips suddenly wet, his eyes glazing over with a frank hunger.

Standing this close, almost touching the Goa'uld, she knew he couldn't see the motions of her hands. She reached down and slipped her right hand under her skirt, hiking up the kapa on her thigh, until her hand touched the knife's sheath. His bulk prevented him from seeing anything below where their bodies nearly met. She raised her left hand and touched his bare arm gripping the flabby heft of it, pretending to exult in how he touched her.

His shield didn't prevent her from caressing his clammy skin, didn't prevent him from lowering his head to taste her throat. She felt his tongue, then his teeth on her left shoulder, but concentrated on the movements of his left hand. It had grasped her right shoulder. She cast a look sideways before raising the knife, moaning loudly in an attempt to disguise her actions, she fit the knife under the strap of his shield and flicked it outward, hard, slicing through the restraints and sending the device sliding down her back to rest on the ground behind her.

Kama pua'a raised his head in confusion. He instantly shoved himself away from Sam, who skittered immediately as far as she could from him, sending the device sliding behind her with a well aimed kick. With an angry, powerful roar, he lunged at her, lifting his right hand to use the gold ribbon device, but Sam dodged the beam, then hurtled back towards him, the knife gripped blade down in her hand.

The Goa'uld couldn't move quickly enough to dodge her blow—she bloodied his cheek before darting away from him, sashaying from side to side as he tried, with a furious bellow, to take aim at her again. He raised his hand, following her with the device as she moved. His eyes now held a continuous dim glow, betraying the degree of his anger. He was breathing too hard to speak, his face red not only with his host's blood, but also with heat from his own rage.

Carter took a chance and backed towards the door, felt for a latch and found none. She recalled that symbols often doubled as automated openers in Goa'uld construction, and felt with her free hand around the jamb for such a device, knowing that without being able to see it, her chances of finding it were dim. She turned in a haze of desperation, flinched when a blast from the Goa'uld's hand device hit a few feet away, then turned back towards Kama pua'a.

He had closed in on her, still holding his hand outstretched, ready to fire again upon her. She made a quick decision and darted for the opposite side of the room, locating the shield device and kicking it as she went. The Goa'uld was too slow, too heavy to keep up with her, but the ribbon device more than leveled the field. Her knife wouldn't do much against his ability to fire the beam at her. She stopped on the other side of the bed, between it and the wall, sending the shield device under the large bed with a slight kick. She doubted he'd be able to reach it—even while she recognized that she was essentially trapped.

"You _are_ of the Tok'ra." Kama pua'a spat the words through a veil of sweat and saliva. "You have come to destroy me, but you will fail. That pitiful weapon is no match for me—even without my shield." He reached towards a table and into a container, withdrawing a Zat. "I don't want you dead, quite yet, Pele. I still must punish you for your actions here." He aimed the weapon at her, grinning as he pulled the trigger.

There was no place for her to go—the blast caught her fully, and she crumpled to the floor.

----OOOOOOO----

The Colonel heard the Zat blast, heard a body hitting the ground, hard.

He stood in the hall, alone, having made his way through the compound by himself after sending the brothers off over the rise and towards the beach with the women out of the room. They'd entered as soon as they had been sure that the Goa'ulds had gone, found the crowd of gestating women in the room accompanied only by the older woman left behind by Kama pua'a.

She'd immediately recognized the brothers, hurrying towards them to show the means by which they could release the chains. Within minutes the women had been freed, and quietly, after a low, mumbled conversation in their rapid native tongue, they had followed Keone and Kaipo out the rear door and up the rise.

O'Neill had been left behind—he'd unclipped his P-90 and stood at the door listening for several long minutes. He'd heard the footsteps down the hall, known Carter had objected forcefully to something happening. He knew her sounds—knew that she'd made an exertion of some sort from a brief, sharp groan. Then he'd heard the sound of metal making contact with flesh, and knew to the core of his being that she'd been hit with something—hard.

Footsteps had scurried, then faded, and after a moment or two of silence, he'd found the symbol on the door jamb that matched the outer door, and pressed it. The door opened quietly, widely, admitting him into the inner hallways of the palace. He raised the P-90 to his shoulder, scanning first one branch of the hallway, then the other. They were identical, but a tiny shred of something green lying in the hallway off to his left urged him forwards. He reached it and looked down—it was a piece of fern, and a single petal from a flower.

Carter's lei.

He hurried down farther into the corridor, passing one, then two doors, before he heard the noise—running—bare feet on a smooth surface. An infuriated shout—and then the Zat.

He sidled up against the door, listening in the deserted hallway for more. He heard a grunt, then the sound of a body being deposited on something soft. A weak protest—Carter's voice, garbled, disoriented.

O'Neill balanced his weapon in one hand, feeling down around the doorway and finding the fishhook. Depressing it, he shifted to the other side of the door as it opened, covering himself with the door while scanning the interior.

His eyes immediately found the bed, the bulk of the Goa'uld hefting himself onto it. He saw Carter pushing weakly against him, noted that the snake had pushed the kapa skirt so that it rode high on her thigh, his hand working at the sheath strapped there. She was practically nude—and his mouth went dry as he took note of her state of dress, the blood welling anew on her head, the blank, pained look on her face.

He stepped quietly inside, raised his weapon in both hands. Carter's gaze caught his movement, and her eyes widened briefly, and he could see her fight her way further into consciousness before she reached for and caught the Goa'uld's left arm in her hand, lifting it, showing the Colonel that the device wasn't there.

Kama pua'a wasn't shielded any longer. O'Neill moved to the side, sighted the side of the Goa'uld's head, and took the shot just as the Goa'uld noticed him. The bullet tore through the snake's throat, exiting out the base of his skull in a fine spray of blood and gore. His bulbous body jerked once before being thrown backwards and to the side, slumping bulbously on the lower halves of Carter's legs his head and one arm draping down the side of the bed.

Immediately, O'Neill moved forward. He lifted a foot and shoved at the body until it slid to the floor. Carter lay panting heavily on her back, her face pained, her entire being shivering, the beginnings of a sob working in her throat.

He fought the insane urge to crawl up next to her and gather her close—forced himself to disregard the fact that she lay, nearly completely exposed, a pinkish sheen of blood settled over her features. He couldn't comfort her now—he needed to get her moving—away from this place, before the echo of his single shot registered on people who knew what the sound was. He grabbed a curtain from where it hung on a wall, looked around and found the knife peeping out from beneath the bed, and grasping it, sliced a notch into the curtain. It was easy then to rip away a wide swath of fabric and hand it to Sam, who had sat up in the bed, her arms covering herself with an attitude of shame and embarrassment that broke his heart.

"Cover up, then let's get out of here." He knew his voice was harsh—he'd growled the words on purpose, to put some sort of distance between them. He turned his back and crossed back to the door, opened it a sliver to peer into the hallway. By the time he glanced back at her, she'd tied the fabric around her body like a sarong, and was trying to stand on legs that were too shaky to be supportive. He closed the door again, and moved back towards her, stalling her with a hand on the side of her face.

"Hold up for a minute. Get your breath. You're no good to me hyperventilating." He found his hands moving through the mess of her hair, unable, after all, to keep himself from offering some hint of comfort. She leaned—he was positive it wasn't by choice—into his touch, and her eyelids flickered closed while her breathing calmed. Finally, his thumb making gentle circles at her temple, he could ask, "You okay?"

She nodded. "I will be, sir."

"Close one."

She nodded again, and the sob finally escaped. "Yeah. It was."

She breathed deeply, searched for, and found, a loose piece of fabric on the bed next to her and wiped at her face, her shoulders. She dabbed at her head, next, and grimaced at the amount of blood that came off on the material.

"Probably needs stitches."

"Yeah." She made one more cleaning motion at her throat, swiped at her collar bone, then threw the material on the floor and stood—less shaky, less ashamed. She finally met his eye, and what passed between them was more than concern for each other as team mates, more than mere friendship. Someday, when the time was right, they would explore it, figure out where it could go. "I probably do."

Something welled up inside him—a heated, painful kind of caring—the knowledge that if he'd failed, if the Pig God had succeeded, then O'Neill himself would have been lost within an agony he hadn't felt since losing Charlie. She meant too much. He'd lost all control over that part of his soul.

If she recognized his struggle, she didn't allude to it. She held out a hand for the knife, and he shook himself out of his thoughts enough to give it to her and then unsnap and hand her his side arm, too. She calmed further while going through the familiar motions of checking the load, chambering a round.

His voice sounding hollow, he repeated himself, feeling like a fool. "Lotsa stitches."

She cast him a grateful, albeit weary, look before saying, "When we get home."

----OOOOOOO----

_I have had some requests for the meanings of the words that I've used. I do have a glossary that I can send you, or I can just add it as a chapter. Which would be preferable?_

_And remember, you're always welcome to ask questions or leave a review. A reviewed writer is a happy writer! Thanks to all of you who have left comments—they're very motivating! Smiles and Aloha! _


	15. The Beginning of the End

_The Beginning of the End_

A low crackle allowed Daniel's voice to intrude into the stillness.

"Jack—what's going on?"

O'Neill shook his head as he reached for the radio. "That boy is never going to learn proper radio protocol."

Carter had returned enough to normal to crack a slight smile. "But sir, he's a communications expert."

"Yeah." O'Neill snorted derisively. "Right."

The radio interrupted again. "Jack—where are you?"

The Colonel found the button with his thumb and pushed it in. "What, Daniel?"

"Where are you? I can see Keone and Kaipo—they just came out of the trees and are heading to where SG-12 is. There's a whole passel of women with them. I haven't seen Ikaika or Aki yet, and Teal'c's getting antsy."

Jack couldn't keep himself from sighing. "Antsy?" He mouthed at Carter, who shrugged.

Still shaking his head, he answered. "We've still got to get the girl, and then we'll be down. I don't think there's much point in blowing the generator, if we can help it."

"But won't that still leave the Goa'uld? I thought that getting rid of him was the whole point."

Jack's eyes flickered to where the body lay, nothing more than a massive pile of flesh, on the other side of the bed. He avoided Carter's eyes when he answered. "The Pig guy's dead."

A pause, then another crackle. "How?"

"Does it matter?"

"Jack—I—"

"He's _dead_, Daniel. Let's just leave it at that. We've got to get the girl, and then we'll be down. Send Teal'c up—we may need his help with the Jaffa."

"Roger." Daniel sounded just like Buzz Lightyear. "Over and out."

O'Neill could feel Sam rolling her eyes. With a hint of conspiratorial intimacy, he cocked one eyebrow. "Someday he'll learn."

"I wouldn't bet on it, sir."

He gave her another long, searching look. "Ready?"

"Yes." She nodded once, took a deep breath, and headed for the door.

He found the fishhook and stepped out of the way as the door swung inward. Weapon raised to his shoulder, he examined the corridor, then moved in a silent gliding walk towards the front of the building.

He could hear Jaffa somewhere, but in the echoing expanse of the palace, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where they were. They passed two doors, pausing at each to listen, but hearing nothing. A hallway intersected the corridor through which they moved, and he motioned for Carter to lead the way down it, as he covered her.

She held the handgun easily at her side, finger alongside the barrel while she crept along the hall. A large entry held a place of obvious honor in one wall—double wide, extensively adorned with carvings and other decorations. She stopped, pressed an ear to the door, and then jerked her head towards O'Neill. He approached, then flanked the door. He heard the sound, too. And even as quiet as it was, it hit him deep.

Sniffles. He heard sniffles. Someone was crying.

He found the fishhook on the jamb—on Carter's side of the door—and pointed at it. She nodded, mouthed a count, and on 'three', pushed it.

The door swung open as quietly as the others had, and O'Neill could immediately see the girl—sitting chained on a sofa in the exact center of the room, flanked on either side by Jaffa. They had their staff weapons in hand, standing on end, casually lax. It was obvious that they didn't consider this girl to be much of a threat.

Kawehilani sat still, head bent, tears dripping down her cheeks. She had been given new clothes to wear—robes of scarlet silken fabric like Kama pua'a had favored, and her hair had been groomed. Her skin shone slightly—oiled as Sam's had been.

She'd been prepared for some reason—a reason that sent a sharp wave of disgust through O'Neill's gut.

He steadied his weapon and fired once—twice—and the Jaffa crumpled to the ground, twin holes in their foreheads. Kawehilani choked a scream back and threw herself down on the couch, covering her head with her arms.

Sam rushed forward, weapon still at her side. Her other hand reached out and touched the girl's shoulder. "Kawehi—sweetie—come on." She tipped her chin up and caught her gaze. "We're here to get you out of here. Let's go."

"Carter—the chains."

"Yes, sir." She crouched, searching for the other end of the chain. It was fastened around the leg of the couch, and she urged Kawehilani to stand, and then raised the end of the sofa and pulled the chain out from around the leg with a sharp move of her foot. She picked up the chain and handed it to the girl. "Kawehi—you're going to have to carry this until we can get it off you. Can you run with it?"

Kawehilani nodded sharply, her dark eyes flitting between Sam and the Colonel. She stood, arranged the chain in her hands, and swiped at her wet cheeks with a fold of her robe. With a scornful glance at her dead guards, she sidled close to Carter. "Hele hele." She whispered. "Home, Nohea. I want to go home."

Sam settled her free arm around the girl's slim shoulders. "I know. Let's go."

----OOOOOOO----

They made their way further down the hallway, O'Neill leading, followed by Kawehilani, with Carter bringing up the rear. Another intersection loomed, and O'Neill motioned for Carter to close in. He felt Kawehilani near, felt her hide in his shadow, and then Carter placed a hand on his arm.

"Sir—"

Just as he turned to see what she needed, the earth shook beneath him. With a huge groan, the mountain trembled, and O'Neill found himself thrown to the ground, reaching for the two women with him while the quake rumbled around them. Cracks appeared in the pristine whiteness of the walls, and the floor split in two—ugly broad fractures opened and then wrenched sideways, seemingly splitting the building in half.

After several tense minutes, the shaking waned, and O'Neill lurched to his feet. Carter followed suit, and between the two of them, they dragged the girl with them. They ran full force down the hall, trying to find an exit, but only succeeding in getting themselves deeper in the palace. Around them, the shouts of Jaffa sounded—a random scream echoed down hopelessly damaged hallways. They'd just turned into a room that seemed to be a common area when another quake hit, forcing them back down on the ground.

"We've got to get out of here!"

"I know, sir! The building's going to come down!" Carter ducked a falling piece of ceiling, sheltering Kawehilani with her own body until the quake vibrations eased. She looked up and instantly pulled her weapon up. "Sir!"

He saw the Jaffa at the same time. Incongruously, they had leveled their staff weapons and were preparing to fire, even while fighting the shifting ground beneath them. Carter watched as the Colonel rose up on one knee, clicked the P-90 to the A setting, and release half a second's worth of rapid fire. Three Jaffa collapsed in a shower of sparks. The Colonel ejected his empty magazine and retrieved another from his vest, jamming it into place.

He looked behind him and jerked his head in the direction the Jaffa had entered from. "We'll go that way."

Carter stood, aided Kawehi back onto her feet, and they set out, carefully dodging the debris that now littered the place. The Colonel kicked sharper bits out of the way with his boots—cognizant of the fact that neither of his companions was wearing shoes.

They passed by the bodies of the Jaffa and angled towards yet another door that led into still another hallway. Carter pushed the girl behind her at the doorway, sidling past the jamb with her weapon raised. The passage, cracked and torn like the rest of the building, lay devoid of life, and she could see a doorway at the far right end, leading out onto the lanai.

"Sir." She motioned a jerk of her shoulder. "There's an exit."

O'Neill followed her gaze. "I see it." He checked once more up the other end of the hall, then shook his head. "It looks too easy."

"We can make it, sir."

"And then what—where's the other Goa'uld?"

"If he's smart, he's already left in his Al'Kesh."

O'Neill shot her a look of such disdain that Sam had to grin, regardless of their circumstances. "When have you known a snakehead to be smart, Carter? Obstinate, yes. Arrogant, yes. Overdressed, certainly. But _smart_?"

"You have a point, sir." She looked him straight in the eye. "But I don't see any other way out of here."

He scowled, checked the hallway again, and then raised his weapon and followed his gunsight down the passage.

Carter pushed Kawehilani ahead of her, scanning to their rear even as she walked. The hall lay eerily silent, the frantic shrieking of earlier had stopped. No boots marched over the cracked floors, and O'Neill knew—he _knew_—that they would find all the bad guys outside—in exactly the direction they now traveled. His eyes scanned everything for an alternate route—but other than doubling back through the collapsing palace, he found no other exit.

The light had subtly changed—it had been late afternoon when he'd entered the building, and well over an hour had passed. The bright light of day was dimming down into twilight—but the quality of it had altered. Filtering in through the high windows of the building, through the door at the end of the passage, the light had turned gray—as if a storm cloud had obscured the sun.

Carter noticed it, too. He heard a tremor in her voice. "Sir—the eruption might have begun."

"Why do you say that, Carter?" But he knew—he'd seen it during his time in Hickam. Ash and released gasses in the air could obscure a sun like that. And coupled with the quakes—he swore, paused, and leaned up against the wall.

"Colonel." She didn't want to spell it out—didn't want the girl with them to understand in just how precarious a position they found themselves. A hysterical Kawehilani would be a difficult addition to that predicament. "We need to hurry."

The Colonel's lips narrowed. "I know that." He met her eyes, and a deeper communication passed between them. He chose his next words carefully. "I also know that Daniel placed the generator in the lava tube."

Sam's eyes widened. She shook her head, bit her lip, and moved closer to him. "If it gets overrun by lava, sir—"

"I know. Big boom."

"This isn't good."

"You think?"

Another tremor—a much smaller one—wobbled the ground beneath their feet. Shouts from outside wafted their way into where the three of them stood, and suddenly, a large figure obscured the doorway at the far end of the hall.

Backlit, it was impossible to see exactly who it was. They made out long hair, a large, muscular body, a short kapa skirt ending at mid-thigh. Bare feet made a slapping sound on the ground as he ran towards them, and both Carter and O'Neill raised their weapons.

Kawehilani spoke for the first time since leaving her prison. "Mano!" She pushed her way out from behind Carter, running towards her brother in a flash of red silk. "Mano!" Half-sobbing, half-laughing, she threw her arms around his neck and hung there, pinned in place by his huge arms returning her embrace, the chain around her ankle pooling on the ground beneath.

He raised his head, captured Sam's eye. "Mahalo for finding her. For freeing her. This place is no longer safe. Ku has sent me to find you. He believes I will bring you to him. He continues to believe his trade arrangement with the Pig God will still be honored."

"Kama pua'a is dead." Sam moved around O'Neill to stand between him and the First Prime. "There's no point in any arrangement now."

"Yes—but Ku still has his ship, his weapons. His Jaffa still search for you and Kawehilani. He's determined to take you back to his world with him."

"Doesn't he understand what's happening to Halemaumau?" The Major shook her head in amazement. "It's erupting."

"He is a god. He believes himself to be invincible." Mano shrugged, and allowed his sister's feet to touch the ground, maintaining a tight hold on her. "He waits for what he considers to be his. He has sent his Jaffa in to find you. Did you not encounter them?"

"Yeah. We encountered." The Colonel cradled his P-90 with a certain amount of adoration. "And then we kicked their butts."

"They are dead?"

"We've knocked off four?" He quirked a look at his Second in Command.

"Five." Sam amended. "And the other Goa'uld."

"There were more than a dozen Jaffa with him." Mano frowned. "Ku brought twenty with him for the Choosing and the trade."

"He killed one on his own—so that's nineteen left. We killed five, and so that leaves fourteen." Jack calculated. "And the other snake. Fifteen bad guys."

"What happened to Aki?"

Mano's frown deepened. He disentangled his sister's arms from around his neck, setting her in front of him. "I sent Aki and Ikaika and the rest of the slaves back to your people. I did not want them to incur the anger of either Goa'uld when it became obvious that they were targets."

"So it's just us." O'Neill pushed off from the wall, lowering his P-90 in front of him again. "Is there any other way out of here?"

Mano gestured to the passageway behind them. "Many—however, I am not sure which ones are still passable." He pushed his sister gently in front of him and passed Carter and O'Neill. "Follow me."

They trailed behind him as he jogged back down the way they'd come. They turned back into the common room, passed the dead Jaffa, and then skidded left, and into a completely different hall than they'd already traversed. At the far end, gray light flickered in through curtains that blew in the slight breeze. Mano led them deep into the passage way.

Carter moved steadily next to O'Neill, periodically scanning behind them to make sure they weren't followed. Kawehilani tailed close behind her brother, jumping over debris and dodging sharp cracks in the floor.

They'd gotten to the midway point when the ground quavered again—the vibrations were violent, profound—the hallway clouded up with dust and ash as the walls swayed liquidly. Cracks opened up in the ceiling—huge bits of walls dislodged and started pelting the floor.

The Colonel collapsed, unable to keep his balance in the surge. Carter dropped next to him, and he reached out with one hand and pulled her close, out of the middle of the hallway, against the wall, shielding both of them with his weapon over their heads. They heard falling debris—a chunk of the ceiling landed a dozen feet away, another considerably closer, and suddenly they were bathed in the strange gray light as the roof of the building disappeared in a cloud of dust. The roar of the earth's shaking faded, and was replaced by the girl's wracking sobs.

Carter pushed up and away from the shelter of O'Neill's arms, crawling over rubble to get to where Kawehilani knelt, her slender hands working frantically at the pile of stone and wreckage in front of her. All that was visible of the First Prime was one hand, his still fingers splayed open. Everything else was covered in the collapsed remains of the hallway. Sam took in the scene at once—measuring in her mind the possibilities, the probabilities. That much weight on a body—_too_ much. She knew that there wasn't any hope for the big man to survive.

"Mano! Mano!" Kawehilani dug at the mountain of rubble, filthy fingers shoving aside hunks of rock and broken pieces of building. She'd started sobbing again, and shrieked when Carter grasped her from behind, trying to pull the girl away from the pile. She fought—screaming, kicking, and crying, but Sam held her steady. After what seemed an eternity, she tired, calmed, her spirit broken, trembling.

"Kawehilani—we have to get out of here." Carter's voice broke the silence with a deliberate air of disconnection. "He's gone. There's nothing we can do for him. He would want you to escape."

The girl wilted, and Sam lowered her into a limp heap on the floor of the ruined hall. Kneeling next to her, she pulled Kawehilani's head onto her lap, so she wasn't breathing in the huge quantities of dust on the floor. "Sir—we have to keep going. We can't stay here, and we can't leave her here."

"I know, Carter." He surveyed their new reality—the passageway before them completely blocked off by broken pieces of building, the area behind them mostly open—but the only exit they knew of was distant—and filled with Jaffa.

His eyes narrowed in explosive, sudden thought. "The fountain room—"

"The what?"

"The room where you were being held originally. There was a fountain in the middle. There's a way out there."

Carter nodded, standing immediately and pulling the girl upright, supporting her with an arm around her waist. "Let's go."

It was slow going—Sam half-carried Kawehilani over the piles of refuse. They hastened through the palace back through miraculously un-collapsed hallway towards the women's common room, reached the door, and pressed the fishhook to let themselves in.

O'Neill moved to one side—foolishly didn't scope the room out before shooing Carter through. When he stepped over the threshold, he stopped short, stunned.

Ku sat on one of the long, low couches, surrounded by four Jaffa, all with their staff weapons leveled at the three fugitives.

"Well." He sneered, his face handsome even in his vindictiveness. "It appears I will claim my prizes after all."


	16. Paradise Bound Glossary

Paradise Bound Glossary

I try to put a little realism in what I write, when I decided to write a story centered around ancient Hawai'i and its mythology, I did quite a bit of research before diving into writing. I relied on several dictionaries and other helps to gather a simple glossary of ancient Hawaiian words and phrases, hoping to add a little more flavor to the descriptions.

As I said before, these words are not, in many cases, the most common usages. They are, for the most part, in the order in which they appear in the story.

I hope that this helps—should you need more information, please feel free to ask. I promise I don't bite.

Pehea 'oe—How are you?

Hanu nui—Breathe well

Maika'i—Beautiful, fine, good health

Ao no ho'i—"What a terrible thing!"

Polapola—To recover from sickness

Ikaika wahine—Strong woman

Wahine—Woman

Lana ka hiamoe—Awakening from sleep

A'ole!—No, or stop

Moe—Recline, lie down

Hina moe—Lie down, recline

Hilahila—Shy, or shameful

Hiki'i—To tie

Hiki'i ka'ai—To tie around

Hele—Hurry

E ku'u haku—My lord (essentially)

Ke nohea—The lovely one

Nohea o na wai—The lovely one from the water (in this case, lovely lady from the water)

Malihini—Newcomer, stranger

Aikane—Friend

Mano—Shark, also "strong"

Kama pua'a—Lord or God of Pigs

Keiki—Child

Opihi—A small shell, there's a little critter in it that locals eat raw—it tastes like salty rubber

Mauna—Mountain

A'a—Rough, rocky lava

Pahoehoe—smooth flowing lava

Heiau—Altar—a religious temple for sacrifice and prayer

Halemaumau—House of Everlasting Fire (the Halema'uma'u in Hawaii is part of the Kilauea volcano—it's the largest and most volatile of the still active volcanoes in the Hawaiian chain.)

Hale—House

Tutu Mahina—Grandmother Mahina—incidentally, Mahina is another legendary name—she is the goddess of the moon

Inu—Drink

Inumia—Drink (more forceful)

Pololi—Hungry

Make 'ai—Hungry

Ai a ma'ona—Eat until hunger is satisfied

Aia la—There!

Ali'i—Royalty, King, Queen

E pili mau na pomaika'i ia 'oe—May you ever be blessed

Mahalo nui loa—Thank you very much

Hele mai—Come here, hurry over to me

Akamai—Clever

Kuleana—Concern, responsibility

Kapu—Taboo

Ho'opohaku—To petrify, remain

Noho pono—Behave yourself

Wa'a Kaulua—Catamaran, traditional boat of the Hawaiian and other Polynesian people

Kaia i ka hiamoe—Sleep deeply

Kane hiamoe—man sleeping

Haku—Woven, or a wide lei—they are made with a base of greenery—usually ferns, and then interwoven with flowers and sometimes feathers. They can be very wide—eight or so inches. Smaller ones are often used as head bands and tied on the wrists and ankles for ceremonial purposes.

Malama Pono—Be careful

Maika'i pomaika'i—Good Luck


	17. Crumbling Down

_Crumbling Down_

Carter heard the Colonel swear softly behind her. She carefully moved her right hand to her side, hiding the gun there. With her left hand, she pulled Kawehilani close, protecting her with her own body.

Ku rose and took a step closer to where Sam, the Colonel, and Kawehilani stood near the entrance. Languidly, as if the world weren't falling apart around them, he smoothed his hair back over his shoulder and surveyed the newcomers. Apparently satisfied, he flicked a hand at them and smiled as he turned away. "Jaffa. Secure the host and the breeder. Kill the male."

"Well, that's a little harsh." The Colonel's voice betrayed his frustration with the situation. Carter felt him shift, knew he had moved his P-90 into a more tenable position. He used the momentary surprise of the Goa'uld to his advantage—preparing himself to attempt something constructive. "Obviously, I object to that plan."

"What you do or do not accept matters little to me." The corner of Ku's mouth lifted in an expression of supreme arrogance. "You will still die, and I will still claim these bodies for my own purposes."

Two of the Jaffa lowered their staff weapons and moved forward. One of them had produced a pair of cuffs and a length of chain. The other still held his staff weapon in one hand, his Zat in the other. Carter kept her eye on them, knowing that the Colonel would be watching those still standing with their staff weapons aimed at him.

"Oh, that's _right_. I'll die. You snakes keep saying that, and yet I'm still here. And how many of you can say the same thing?" O'Neill's tone had turned from mocking annoyance to chilly intention.

"You did, indeed, do me a favor in killing the Pig. I can now lay claim to this world." He ran the tip of his tongue over his top teeth, leering openly at Carter and the girl she was attempting to shield. "Utilize its resources."

"You do realize that this island is rapidly going to become uninhabitable?" Sam couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"Why should I care about such matters?" The Goa'uld watched as his Jaffa reached Carter and Kawehilani, scowled as Carter drew back further, turning her body even as she shoved the girl further behind her. "I am a God. I cannot die."

"Yes, well. Even so. There's a cliché about being big and falling hard, isn't there, Carter?"

"Yes, sir." She felt the muzzle of his weapon on her back, instantly weighed the pros and cons of ducking and just letting him spray the Jaffa and Goa'uld with a clip full of bullets. She saw the Goa'uld raise his right hand, and the device within his palm glinted and began to glow. "Sir—"

"I see it, Carter."

"So—"

"What else do you want me to do, Carter?"

She knew exactly what he was saying—their options were limited. But for him to open fire would be suicide—he wouldn't last—couldn't win against the two staff weapons, the Zat, and the hand device.

Even if she came out shooting, too. They would die and Kawehilani would still be taken to be used as a breeder.

Sam stiffened. Resigned to the only way she could see to end this without all three of them dead.

"What are you thinking, Carter?" The Colonel's voice was only loud enough to reach her ear. She swallowed and willfully ignored him, concentrating on gaining something of an upper hand.

The Jaffa reached them, extended a hand and grasped Kawehi's arm. The girl swallowed a cry and retreated further behind Sam. Sam made her decision, somehow found O'Neill's hand behind her and pressed her gun into it.

"Take me." Sam caught the Goa'uld's eye. She took a tiny step forward, raising her arms in an attitude of surrender. "Take me and let them go. I'll be the host. I'll do whatever you want me to do."

"But I have the advantage in this." The Goa'uld steepled his eyebrows, giving a little half-shrug that showed his disdain for her. "Why should I bargain?"

"There's an explosive device. It's hidden here—waiting to be detonated. I can show you where it is. I can disarm it." She stepped forward again, holding out her hands, asking to be cuffed. "Let them go, and I will do it. If not, it will destroy your Al'Kesh. It will destroy this mountain. Make no mistake that everyone on this island will die. Including you."

"What are you doing, Carter?" O'Neill's voice was louder, now, angrier.

But she couldn't listen to him. She focused all her will on the Goa'uld. "I'll do anything—and willingly. Imagine what a prize that will be. To have a host from among the Tau'ri."

Ku breathed in, his eyes flashing a dull gold. She could see him thinking—see the consideration he gave her proposal. He wanted her—she knew that. And she desperately hoped that he was tempted by the thought of having her as a host for whichever chosen symbiote he had waiting for one. He absently stroked at his chin with the backs of his fingers, slowly, savoring his own touch. And even as Sam's skin prickled at the sight, even as her stomach clenched in revulsion, she moved closer to him, past the Jaffa who had paused, still holding the cuff and chains, past the Jaffa with the Zat.

Finally, she stood right in front of the Goa'uld. She lifted her hands again, submissive. "Let them go." She said, allowing her eyes to flicker down his body, frankly appraising him. "Take me."

"Carter—you are _so_ out of line." O'Neill's voice bit into her. He was furious—beyond anger. She forced herself not to react, couldn't concentrate on him behind her, could only hope that he would take the girl and run and get down the mountain and out to sea before the whole place exploded.

"Take me." She entreated again. "I will worship you willingly."

Ku's left hand suddenly snaked out and grabbed the back of her head. He fisted his fingers in her hair—she knew that she cried out as he wrenched her head sideways, prayed her control wouldn't break when he bent his head and lowered his lips to her ear.

"Of course you will worship me. I am your God." And then his eyes blazed brightly, and his smile widened as he yanked on her head again, twisting her with a sharp, harsh movement of his hand.

With a growl, he thrust her to the ground. She fell forcefully to the floor, tried not to shout out with pain as her knees made contact with the debris on the now-filthy tiles. Behind her, she could hear Kawehilani shriek, and a metallic rattling as a chain was moved. She looked up to see Ku smiling down at her.

"You are not as desirable as you believe yourself to be." He raised his right hand, where the hand device thrummed with power, and released a burst of energy, even as he gritted out a low, grunting laugh.

It hit Sam in the forehead, and she lost all ability to think, all power of speech. The beam sucked every bit of energy and will out of her, and the pain—blinding—intense—robbed Sam of every other ability. And she knew that she was crying, could feel the tears roll down her cheeks. Could see the light as if it were at the end of the blackest tunnel, and she was being held away from it by forces that she couldn't see—forces that gripped her in sharp, angry hands.

She couldn't see anything but the light, could hear the mesmeric whooshing of the energy as it pulsed through her being, burning within her. She was losing touch—losing herself to it—hated wanting to be completely enveloped in it so that the pain would leave--

And then suddenly, everything went black.

She sagged to the ground limp, helpless. Her body floundered, and she struggled to recognize the sounds she heard—the screams, the rapid bursts of something familiar—yet distant—far from her ability to understand. Something fell heavily next to her, twin flashes filled her field of vision, and she searched for a name in her head, yet came up empty.

Hands gripped her—dragged her across the debris strewn field and out a door. More darkness beckoned, and then she found herself being tossed across a wide, wide shoulder, and found it comforting, for some reason.

Jolting movement, and voices that sounded familiar.

And then she lost consciousness, slinking deep off into the void.

----OOOOOOO----

"How many more Jaffa are present, O'Neill?"

"How many did we get back there?"

"Four—but I fear that the Goa'uld is only wounded."

The Colonel moved quickly next to Teal'c, his long legs eating up the ground.

The Goa'uld had turned that palm thing on Carter, and Jack hadn't been able to keep himself from firing—he'd gotten two rounds into the snake before having to turn his attention to the rest of the Jaffa. He'd killed one, grazed another—shoved the girl behind him as he'd flicked the switch from single shot to automatic and shouldered the P-90 more firmly.

But by then, two staffs were aimed at him, and their ends had blossomed. He could have sworn he could see the Jaffa's trigger fingers twitch.

The Colonel couldn't ever remember being happier to see anyone in his life. One moment, he'd recognized that he couldn't shoot both of the guards aiming weapons at him, and the next second, both his opponents had slumped over on the floor, and Jack had looked up to see Daniel and Teal'c standing shoulder to shoulder in the open back doorway

Daniel followed close behind O'Neill now, clutching his weapon tightly in front of him. Kawehilani ran full out next to them—her shorter legs working hard to keep up with the much larger men, one leg still weighed heavily with the cuff, although Teal'c had blasted through the closest link in the chain with his staff weapon. Aki and Ikaika took up the rear, their bare feet flashing as they expertly found the best paths over the uneven terrain.

"And you got _how_ many at the entrance?" O'Neill was still counting.

"Six." Teal'c adjusted Major Carter on his shoulder, holding her steady with an arm curled around her body and a hand on her lower back. "There should remain four."

"And one possibly dead Goa'uld."

Teal'c didn't answer, merely kept jogging. They had rounded the furthest corner of the palace, and now hurried down the hill, along the outer edge of the structure towards the Al'Kesh. The mountain had long since started sputtering with more than just gas—the crust of the earth had shifted with the earthquakes, and it was only a matter of time before something hot and deadly started pouring out of some vent somewhere.

They had known they couldn't make it to the beach—couldn't fit all the pregnant women and slaves and Marines into the Zodiacs—so they'd made the decision to take the Al'Kesh.

Only there was the small matter of the remaining Jaffa. And one possibly dead Goa'uld. Jack muttered an epithet and cranked up his pace.

The air was pungent with a foul smell—acidic—it reminded O'Neill of rotten eggs. He choked back a gag, and bent his arm over his mouth and nose, using his sleeve as a filter. Daniel was doing the same thing.

"That's sulfur, Jack!" Daniel yelled as he ran, raising his head briefly from behind the crook of his arm. "That's not a good sign!"

"Then run faster, Daniel!"

In the fading light, the mountain had grown even blacker. Aki stumbled on the hardened lava, and Ikaika caught him at him with one of his massive hands and yanked the other man back up. They hopped jagged openings in the crust, new cracks that hadn't been there six hours earlier. Through one particularly bad one, O'Neill had seen the hint of a glow. And even though the sun no longer blazed down, the air had grown hotter—stiffer. The breeze had ceased, and no air moved to dissipate the emissions of the mountain.

Kawehilani reached the front of the building first. She ran into the shadows of the eaves, sidling alongside the crumbling walls of the palace. The Colonel stopped behind her, and peered over her head past the large open area between the heiau and the palace, where the Al'Kesh sat, two Jaffa standing guard at its entry.

The Colonel braced himself against the wall and raised his weapon. Through the darkness, his scope showed the two guards—and no one else.

"It would appear that the remaining Jaffa are within the Al'Kesh, O'Neill."

"Yeah—I thought the same thing, Teal'c." He lowered his weapon and squinted into the lowering night. "If we take them out, we can board the ship and take out anyone still inside."

He felt Teal'c shift behind him, knew that his friend was adjusting how the Major lay on his shoulder.

Daniel moved quietly up to Jack's side. "She's still unconscious."

"She's had a tough time of it, Daniel. Give her a minute."

Daniel cast him a telling look, before squinting again into the distance. "So, how do we do this? Charge in with guns blazing?"

"Who are we, Butch and Sundance?" Jack passed a tired, dirty hand over the stubble on his cheeks, trying to ignore the slight tremor that rumbled beneath them.

"I believe we should be as stealthy as possible—to avoid alerting the Jaffa still within the craft to our presence." Teal'c's voice wafted forward. His deep timbre crackled with tension.

"So—single shots? Long range?" Jack sighted again—considering.

"Zats. They're quieter." Daniel opined.

"Uh—" A movement off to one side caught O'Neill's attention, and he watched disbelievingly as Aki and Ikaika made their way silently around the far side of the yard, moving quickly, their machetes held loosely at their sides. After a minute, Aki emerged on the near side of the Al'Kesh, and with a seemingly casual move of his machete, cut the Jaffa down. The guard fell quietly, instantly dead.

"What are those things, anyway?"

"Wooden blades with sharpened shells and coral embedded in them, I think." Daniel said quietly. "They don't have any metal—I guess they have to make do."

Jack's eyes narrowed. Ikaika had rounded the other side of the craft, the blade of his machete darkened. The two men stood, waiting, looking up towards the Palace in an attitude of blatant expectation.

"Effective." Jack took one last, sweeping look with the scope of his weapon. Without switching out for the night vision scope, however, it was next to useless. And he'd left the FLIR with the Marines after all, believing it to be unnecessary with their foolproof generator plan.

Sighing, he crossed in front of the girl, sandwiching her between himself and Daniel. "All right. Let's go. Kawehilani—you follow Daniel. Don't leave his side. Daniel—" Jack fixed the younger man in his gaze. "Watch out for her."

"And then what?" Daniel wanted to know.

"We'll take out the last two Jaffa, and use the ship to get the hell out of Dodge." He caught each of his companion's eyes in turn, then gave a curt nod. "Let's go."

----OOOOOOO----

The ship lay largely silent, only a distant hum indicated that the engines were active.

Sam felt rather than heard the hum—the vibrations in the floor alerted her to the fact that she was no longer on the broken floor of the women's common room, no longer within the Palace at all. She hurt—mostly in her head, but her knees too—and the soles of her feet were stinging again.

She sat up and opened her eyes—bleary in the dim lighting of the ship—recognizing where she was almost immediately.

Daniel's face swam in her view, and she raised a hand to wipe at the gum in her eyes, certain that she was hallucinating.

"Sam."

Now he was hearing his voice, too—she slowly opened her eyes again, focusing on him.

"Sam." He whispered again, and his hand dropped gently on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I will be." She stared at him. "What are you doing here?"

His eyes widened and he nodded his head sideways. "Long story. I'll tell you later?"

Sam nodded. "Okay." She looked around, took in her surroundings, and then placed a hand on Kawehilani's arm. "Are you all right?"

At the girl's nod, Sam relaxed slightly.

"How's the mountain?"

"Smelly." Daniel gestured out the still-open door. "Like rotten eggs."

"Sulfur." She rubbed a hand through her disheveled hair, felt the crusted mess again, gingerly felt for fresh blood, and was relieved not to find any. "It means that the volcano's releasing gasses. Could mean an eruption."

"Well, we're trying to get out of here before then."

"Where's the Colonel?"

"Jaffa hunting." Daniel glanced in the direction the men had disappeared in. "With Teal'c, Aki, and Ikaika."

Sam leaned forward and then hooked her legs around behind her and attempted to kneel. She faltered, and Daniel steadied her briefly as she stood. He accompanied her to the door.

Outside, she could see the darkened sky distorted by wavering clouds of gasses. "Any more earthquakes?"

"A few small ones." Daniel followed her line of vision out the door into the night. "It's been several minutes."

"We've got to get out of here." She said, and then turned at the sound of footsteps running down a hall.

Aki emerged first, O'Neill close on his heels. They pulled up short when they emerged into the entry way, O'Neill's eyes immediately found her by the door, taking a swift inventory.

"Carter—you okay?"

She tried to smile, but couldn't quite pull it off. So she settled for honesty. "I will be, sir."

His lips narrowed, and Sam knew he was suppressing his true response. Instead of tearing into her, he unhooked his weapon and propped it against a wall, then crossed to where she stood at the door. "Come on, you guys—we deep sixed the last Jaffa. Let's close up this ship and get out of here. Carter—why don't you try the keypad?"

She bent at the pad—a bit unsteady—and began to press the combination. But her fingers wobbled, and then she was knocked off her feet.

The ground beneath the ship shifted in a mighty lurch. She watched in a kind of horrific fascination as a crack opened beneath the Al'Kesh, and then widened as the shaking continued. She found herself yelling, "Go! Take off!" without being able to turn her head away from the sight below. As the shaking continued, she perched in the doorway, staring as the blackened old-flow lava disintegrated with the fierce tremor, sending large hunks of rock into the crimson brilliance of the lava flowing beneath.

Carter saw the Colonel thrown to the ground, watched as he rolled over and tried to brace himself against the shaking ship. Kawehilani had also prostrated herself on the floor, with Daniel nearby. Sam felt herself being sucked towards the entry of the Al'Kesh and flipped herself onto her stomach, digging with her toes into the smooth surface of the floor. She pushed away from the edge and grabbed as best as she could at the floor with hands that still hadn't regained all of their strength. But the ship canted just at that moment—either from the ground beneath it buckling, or from Teal'c attempting to take off—and she slid further towards the opening.

"Carter!" O'Neill had seen her predicament, and scooted closer to her, reaching his hand out towards her. "Carter! Come on!"

And she tried to force her way up the incline, somehow found a toe hold, and with her bare feet protesting, she propelled herself towards his outstretched hand. Reached—and then grasped his fingers.

And he smiled half-way, and yelled over the roar of the ship and the rumble of the quake, "Got Déjà vu?"

And just when she'd found the energy to smile back, she felt a hand grasp her ankle and drag her back towards the open door, her fingers once again slipping out of the Colonel's.


	18. Hovering Over Hell

Hovering Over Hell

By some miracle her fingertips found a crack between the flooring and the threshold of the entry way

Sam dug eight fingertips into the slight crevice, grasping at the edge of the threshold with her thumbs. The weight on her leg was dragging her down—she couldn't hold on this way for long. That the ship was idling little more than a dozen above the mountain was not what concerned her—she'd survived falls from greater heights—had been trained for just such instances.

But the crust of the mountain was crackling open—gaping wide in some places, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the lava flow reached and then overcame the naquadah generator. Nothing would survive that. Not even the mountain.

"Sam!" Daniel had slid to the edge, and Carter felt his fingers on her right wrist. He grasped firmly with both hands, encircling her arm and offering support. "Climb back up!" He tugged on her arm, but with the extra weight on her leg, she was too cumbersome to be easily reeled back in.

"I can't!" Her voice came out nearly as a growl. "There's someone on my leg!"

She steeled herself and shook her leg, felt whoever it was grip more tightly—now recognized they had both hands on her—one on her calf and the other creeping up and over her knee. She tried to look down, between her body and the edge of the ship, but only caught a glimpse of brown skin—black hair, and the deep gash in the earth directly beneath where the Al'Kesh hovered, bleeding bright with liquid hell.

"Hold on!" She shouted at Daniel, and tried to raise her left arm up and over the threshold. Daniel braced one foot against the inner wall of the ship, the other planted firmly on the floor, and pulled. Carter's left arm briefly flailed in the entry before finally finding another arm to grasp and hang firmly onto. Her struggles eased as she felt she could rest for a moment. She hung limply for a breath, then looked up at her lifelines.

Daniel on her right, his face tight with effort, and the Colonel had her left arm, his right foot braced like Daniel's, against the entry way of the Al'Kesh.

They were looking at each other, mouthing a count, and Carter braced herself as soon as she saw the "Three!"

They heaved until it felt that her arms were loosening in their sockets—her shoulders burned with the effort of trying to haul herself up in combination with the extra weight swinging on her leg. She let out a guttural shout, scrambling with her one free leg to find purchase where there was none on the underbelly of the ship even while trying to pull herself up on to the threshold.

She inched upward, her elbows cleared the edge of the flooring, and she could feel the ship against her abdomen. The position was precarious—not far enough into the ship for her team to let go—and too far for them to continue holding on to her comfortably. She ached with effort—and the hands on her leg remained clenched tight.

Daniel angled himself oddly. Still holding her, while still bracing against the ship, he tilted his core so that he could see out the door and down.

"It's a man!" He cocked his head and tilted further. "Long black hair—he looks like Mano."

Sam nearly sobbed with frustration. "Ku!" She caught the Colonel's gaze. "It has to be Ku!"

"I shot him, Major. Twice!"

The ship jolted, rocked by something none of them could see. Carter found herself slipping slightly, the rough edge of the ship abrading the fine skin of her chest and abdomen. The flimsy silk sarong did nothing to protect her from Goa'uld construction. She tried to hold her body away from the rough carvings in the exterior of the Al'Kesh, but only succeeded in slipping even further.

Sam heard footsteps, and Aki emerged from a hallway. "Your friend Teal'c says you need to rise above this altitude."

"Tell him not yet!" O'Neil readjusted his position slightly, gained more leverage. "He's got to maintain for a few more minutes."

"You might not have that long!" Aki stepped closer, then fell to his knees between Daniel and Jack and pointed. "Aia la!"

They followed his gesture—over the palace, at the rise where they had stood and surveyed the area. A crater had opened in the old flow, a sink hole in the side of the shield. From it oozed the viscous pahoehoe—slow moving, but earnest and destructive. The ground in front of it had cracked, and the palace had begun to list drunkenly to one side, its ruined form glowing nearly amber in the light of the flow.

"Ah, _crap_." The Colonel looked down at Carter. "Can you shake him off?"

Sam tried—but if anything, it made the Goa'uld grip more tightly. She felt him take a firm hold with what seemed to be an arm. He'd somehow grappled himself up high enough that he was hugging her leg, and she felt him reach for the other.

"Hold on!" She warned again, and wriggled, trying to dislodge the parasite, but he only clung to her more forcefully. This time, when she spoke, her voice broke. "I can't get him off."

From above her, she heard the Colonel groan. "Carter, you've gotta stop doing this sort of thing. It's getting really old!"

And unbelievably, she found herself choking on a smile.

She felt the Colonel shift, felt herself swing outward with his movement. Daniel adjusted his grip, and she slid even more. She took a chance and looked down, craning her neck to see exactly who it was weighing her down.

Black hair, wide shoulders—chiseled arms and broad chest. He was gazing downward at the devastation on the ground, then looked up towards the Al'Kesh just as Sam shifted for a better look beneath.

Eyes flashed in recognition. Teeth bared in a semblance of a twisted smile.

Carter kicked experimentally, and he dug his fingers into her knee, just above the joint on the side. Pain shot throughout her body, and she shuddered, swallowed a cry as she returned her gaze to the interior of the ship.

"It's the Goa'uld, sir." She struggled to quell the pain he'd inflicted, fought against the nausea that arose within her.

"Dammit." She heard the Colonel growl, then felt him shift again, heard him yell something at the village chief, and felt another pair of hands on her arms.

Her center of balance shifted again—the newcomer received her weight just differently enough that she had to swing widely in response. She heard Daniel groan with effort as he changed position yet again.

Suddenly, the Colonel's face appeared in front of her. He lay on the threshold on his stomach, arms folded under his chin. He looked cold—implacable. She hadn't seen the expression he wore often, but when she had, someone had usually ended up dead. He casually raised his side arm, the one that she'd pressed into his grip in the common room before her attempt at self-sacrifice, and chambered a round with an efficient motion of his opposite hand then held it up, barrel to the sky.

He caught her eye—deeply, questioning. What she wasn't certain—her intentions? Motivations? Actions? His brows lifted ever so slightly, and he lowered his head further. "Do you trust me?"

_As if she didn't_—she shook her head in confusion—_she trusted him more than she'd trusted anyone, ever_. But still, she queried,"What, sir?"

"I said, do you trust me?"

She nodded, held in time by that dark gaze. And he extended his empty left hand, past her aching shoulder, under her arm and around her back. He tangled his fingers in the silk of her make-shift sarong, gripping her to the ship, bracing her. The position placed his mouth alongside her ear, and she heard his breath pass, felt the warmth against her hair.

With his other hand, he rounded her other shoulder, almost palming the gun, sliding it down her skin. He held the position for a moment, then gently started to swing her.

The Goa'uld's grip grew impossibly tight—he dug his hands into her legs. The bare fingers on his left hand shifted, then came to rest on her thigh as his arm hugged even more tightly. His right hand fell away, and suddenly she slid further when he jerked slightly, tugging with his body weight. She couldn't figure out what he was doing—but felt him swivel, throwing his right hand wide.

A flash burst past her, impacting the underside of the vessel. Another pulse burned its way up towards her head, and she threw her face to the side to avoid being struck.

"His hand device, sir!" She hated sounding like this—like a frightened woman. Carter was aware that her voice had grown shrill—recognized that she was rapidly losing feeling in her arms—that no matter how hard other people held on to her, she would soon lose the ability to assist herself.

The Colonel muttered something unintelligible, and she felt his hand at the small of her back swinging her further, rotating her until her body was pivoting in a steady circular motion. He drew his weapon, ducking into her body as another blast burst upward. Sighting along her back, she sensed him tense, then exhale, and felt the subtle kick of the weapon as it discharged.

From below, arose an infuriated bellow. The Goa'uld laid the hand device directly along her thigh, its heat seeping directly into her body.

She couldn't help it—she turned her head into the Colonel's sleeve and muffled her scream. Fire shot through her—and she heard Ku demanding rescue, threatening even more pain if they both weren't lifted to the safety of the ship.

But O'Neill simply swung her around again, seemingly ignoring her cries, disregarding the way she'd tensed against the burning on her thigh. Sam heard him breathe again, and she struggled to concentrate on the heat at her ear instead of the agony below.

She felt her body completely leave the edge of the ship, his hand tighter against the small of her back. He sighted again, followed the arc of her swing around and out, until he whispered "Trust me" again just past her ear and leveled his weapon.

She felt the gun kick against her, felt his body absorb the recoil. A single scream wafted upward, and then she was impossibly weightless, and the Colonel drew her up and into him, his hands grasping at her body and pulling her into safety.

Daniel and Aki dragged her arms, helped both Sam and the Colonel ease onto the leveling floor of the Al'Kesh. Exhausted, they collapsed together, she laying on one of his outspread arms, he on his side facing her. She pulled in deep breaths, fighting against the sobs that threatened, trying not to completely lose herself in her fear—her pain—her relief. She felt the Colonel sit up, felt him lean over her, sensed that there were other fingers examining the burn on her thigh, the new bruising that had to be creeping up her legs, the renewed seeping of the gash on her head.

And the ship gave a huge lurch, and she felt them being propelled upward, and somewhere along the way, Carter gave in to the darkness burgeoning within her, closed her eyes, and faded from reality.


	19. Back From the Edge

_Back From the Edge_

A feather light touch at her temple brought her back.

Sam leaned into it—sighed, and flickered a brief smile.

Too little lately had felt good—had felt right.

But this little touch filled her with something sweet, and precious, and good.

"Major."

She was light. Flying? Resting? Floating somewhere in that deep peace between sleep and wakefulness, she decided, where she could imagine things being not what they really were. And it was cool, and clean, and fresh, and soft, and she was comfortable. And no pain blurred through the sensation.

She liked the no pain part.

"Carter."

The voice intruded again, but it wasn't unpleasant. Not like the dryness of her mouth, or—she realized—the taste there. She ran her tongue along her teeth and grimaced, opened her lips and found it uncomfortable to do so.

Her head was being raised, some kind of a machine sounded, and she felt her body being lifted. And then she realized where she was, and opened her eyes.

The infirmary.

The other sounds flooded in, then. The subtle beeping of the monitors, the mechanical hums of the base itself. Janet's shoes' click-click along the cement floor, soft voices and the slight clanking of instruments and trays.

"You back in the land of the living?"

She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. She settled for moving her head to one side, stretching.

"Aloha."

Oh, the irony. Unbelievably, she could almost smile at that.

She heard the metallic scrape of institutional chair legs on the floor and angled a look to her side to find the Colonel sitting in just such an institutional chair, feet planted firmly on the ground, one hand dangling easily on his knee, his other hand—_elsewhere_.

The backs of his fingers brushed her cheek.

"No fever." He said quietly. "You're not delusional."

"Delirious." She automatically corrected through brittle lips.

He smiled, then—one corner of his mouth quirking up, his eyes expressing even more. "Whatever. You're not _that_."

"What happened?"

"Don't worry about that, just yet, Carter. You concentrate on feeling better."

"The people on the planet?"

"Safe and sound. And free. You managed to fulfill your destiny—or whatever."

Her eyes went hazy briefly before she fought back into lucidity. She saw the Colonel stand and reach for something on the table next to her head, then sit gingerly on the side of the bed. He lifted a little plastic cup and positioned the straw. "Small sips."

She obeyed him and took a single experimental draw before drinking again. This time she savored the cool liquid as it soothed her mouth, her throat, her body. She wet her lips with a renewed tongue. "The mountain?"

"The generator leveled it. It's probably still spewing back there."

"How long has it been?"

He hesitated, and she saw doubt flash across his face.

"Sir."

"You've been out of it for a few days. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure exactly how long it's been."

And she knew that he was lying. But did it matter? Eventually it might, but not now.

Sam ran her fingers along the smooth fabric of the sheets, enjoying the sensation. She used the comfort she found in the simple motion to brace herself for what she had to say. Looking up at her CO from beneath her eyelashes, she watched as he futzed with the straw in her water cup, trying to get it to sink to the bottom instead of floating in a lopsided cant against the side.

"I'm sorry." She hadn't meant to blurt it, but once she'd started, she couldn't seem to stop. "I'm sorry that I didn't trust you on the bridge—I should have believed in you. But I didn't want to drag you over the edge, and I thought I would—I—and then everything went wrong, and you were hurt—" she faltered at his look, which was a mix of incredulity and sympathy. "And I'm sorry."

"It's over, Carter." His hand stilled on the straw, and he deliberately let it float and sat down again, scooting his chair even closer to her. "Done with."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, seeing how you've officially attained the status of deity on P7L-whatever—"

"626."

"Yeah—that." He waved a hand dismissively. "Seeing how you're now considered to be their god, far be it for me to second guess you."

"Sir." Her tone held disapproval, and a hefty dose of skepticism.

His lips thinned and he reached for her hand, running a roughened fingertip over the bruises there. "You've been hurt pretty badly, Carter. Don't you want to rest up before you start beating yourself up again?"

She grimaced. "How bad is it?"

"I should let Fraiser tell you that."

"Please, sir."

He deliberated, his fingers still tracing the fine bone in her wrist. Finally, without looking at her, he began. "Stitches in your scalp—you'll have a scar."

"I figured on that one."

"Bruising, abrasions, lacerated feet, blisters from the heat, burn on your leg. Deep bone bruises on your legs—and I'm sure your back and shoulders don't feel great." He gestured at the IV running up her other arm. "Or at least they won't once Doc Fraiser takes away the happy juice."

Sam glanced at the IV with distaste. She hated being drugged.

"Burn on your—head—there." He pointed at a spot just above the center of her forehead. "The Cool guy used his hand device on you."

"Ku."

"Yeah, him." The Colonel nodded, shrugging. "But that one should heal up right away. Sunburn—that's what Fraiser equated it to."

"Was I—" She could feel herself go scarlet, her cheeks burning. But she had to know—she'd lost some time after the Zat, didn't recall much until O'Neill had entered the room and dispatched the Goa'uld. Knew the Pig god had been on top of her. "I don't remember."

"No." His face became hard—expressionless. "Doc says no."

She raised a hand and covered her face. Relief brought a well of tears to her eyes. She blinked them back and breathed deep, then swiped away any hint they'd been there at all.

Around them, the infirmary quieted, and she allowed herself to sag into the bed, into the comfort of the pillows and the cool sheets and weight of the cheap institutional blanket. She turned her head and found him watching her, and he suddenly looked different—more familiar somehow.

"How much am I going to have to explain?"

"About what, exactly?"

"I wasn't really dressed right."

His eyes widened slightly. "We covered you up."

"Did you bring me right back here, or—"

"There was a ring platform near the 'Gate. Daniel and I brought you back here. Teal'c stayed behind with the Marines to try to salvage the Al'Kesh."

"It was damaged?"

"Carter—remember? Big boom."

"The generator."

"Oh yeah." He grinned like an eleven year old boy. "It was really cool. But it knocked out some key systems, so we limped back to the 'Gate, ringed down, and then 'Gated home while Teal'c landed. We're hoping it can be salvaged. But the important thing is that everyone is safe. All the village people, the ladies—" he extended a hand in front of his stomach, "the girl. All back at home, and no snakes on the planet anymore."

"Good." She closed her eyes and sank back further. "Then it was worth it."

She heard him breathing, felt his hand there, at her side, assiduously not touching hers. But she wanted him to—needed physical contact in that moment to prove that she had made it, relatively unscathed. The past hours had tested her like little else had—humiliated her, tried her, taunted her, found her lacking in many abilities, abundant in others. And she needed something more than words. She found herself shifting her hand, barely teasing the back of his hand with her own.

And she was embarrassed that her tears had returned—but she let them come, this time, as she captured his gaze. "Thank you, sir."

He rose, reached for and handed her a tissue. She felt his eyes on her as she mopped at her eyes and wiped at her nose. And his hand came to rest gently on the side of her face, his thumb making a light sweep of her cheekbone. "Don't mention it." Lightness, teasing, his tone was easy. "Just don't make me do it again."

Sam watched as he suddenly leaned over the bed, one hand braced at her side, the other on her pillow. "Really. Don't ever make me do it again. Because I couldn't. Do you understand?"

All she could do was nod.

"Trust me, Carter. From now on." He searched her face, and she could see the rawness of his jaw where he'd just shaved, could smell his distinct scent—soap and gunpowder, and something indefinable that could just be attributed to _him_. "Don't ever do that again."

She shook her head this time. "I won't."

"I won't let you fall."

Another nod. "I know."

And the thing was, she _did_.

He leveled a look at her—fierce, insistent, honest. And it was too much—too close—too intimate—too _everything_.

And so he righted himself, shoving his hands in his pockets, still looking down at her with an expression too open for her to misunderstand. "So, do you need anything?"

"Just sleep, sir."

"Vacation?"

"Maybe a few days' leave."

"You know, I hear you can get killer deals to Maui this time of year. Sandy beaches, palms swaying in the wind, hula girls—the works."

Despite herself—or maybe because of herself—she laughed. "Maybe not."

"Maybe not." He nodded. "Well, Aki says you're welcome anytime—they're planning a luau."

"Sounds nice."

"Yes." And he suddenly reached out and gripped her hand one more time, briefly caressing the back of her hand with his the pad of his thumb. And then, just as quickly, he let go, shoving his hand deep into the pocket of his BDU pants.

"I'd better get out of here before Fraiser thinks we're plotting a coup."

"Thank you, Colonel."

He shrugged lightly, rocking back on his heels, then turned away. Just as he shouldered his way through the curtain, he looked back at her.

"Unless you want me to stay."

She didn't have to answer. She merely opened her hand and laid it palm up at her side. And he turned and sat back down in the chair, and lightly touched his fingertips to hers. And for whatever reason, her eyes were suddenly heavy, and she sighed as she sank back into a hazy rest.

"Get some sleep, Carter." His voice soothed her. Comforting, reassuring. "I'll be here."

----OOOOOOOO----

_Mahalo Nui Loa to all of you who have been patient enough to travel with me through this story. I am always humbled when people follow these long ones, and am grateful and pleased when you've reviewed and commented. So thanks again, and Aloha!_


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